The 100 student teams that applied to the annual Panasci Business Plan Competition
in the Whitman School of Management at Syracuse University were first narrowed
to 32. Twelve teams were then selected to compete in the semi-finals. On April 18, the
top four teams competed for first prize.
After a long day of presenting and anxiously waiting, BSApp, consisting of Greg
Ackerman '08, G'09 and Peter King '08 was awarded the first prize of $25,000.
BSApp's concept is to supply graduate business schools the necessary tools to trace an
applicant from the moment of inquiry to enrollment and also to offer applicants an
online service that allows them to submit their applications and supplemental
materials to one location.
Second place and a $10,000 award were presented to Brand-Yourself.com, consisting
of team members sophomores Trace Cohen and Pete Kistler, senior Robert Sherman
and junior Evan Watson.
Third place and $ 5,000 were awarded to Food2Joules with team members Amina
Isakovic, Preeth Muthusamy, Joon Choi, Alanna Simpson and Cheng-Mou Wu, all of
whom are SU seniors, along with Lindsay Perez, a senior at the SUNY College of
Environmental Science and Forestry.
The judges also recognized the Tree Spoon team with the Perseverance Award and
the Let Us Fish team with the Passion Award.
During the finals, the teams presented their business plans to Syracuse-area business
leaders, who judged them on creativity, innovation, feasibility, comprehensiveness
and their oral presentation.
The Panasci Business Plan Competition is hosted by the
Falcone Center for
Entrepreneurship in the Whitman School. Students from the SU and SUNY-ESF
campuses entered the competition.
