Students
2002 Merle Volding Business Plan Competition Winners
The John Pappajohn Entrepreneurial Center held the second annual Merle Volding Business Plan Competition during the spring semester. More than twenty students or teams submitted applications to enter the competition.
The students were required to meet a series of deadlines for submitting first an Executive Summary and ultimately a final Business Plan. During the semester, JPEC staff and faculty advised and assisted in elements of each team's Business Plan that presented problems or questions.
Eight teams made final oral presentations to a team of judges from the JPEC faculty on May 10th. The decision of the judges of this year's competition was made more difficult because of the quality of the business concepts, all of which were viable.
Karsten Temme and a diverse team of engineering and business students were awarded $5,000 seed money for their start-up company, X-Wires Communications, L.L.C. Temme founded X-Wires during the spring to establish a Wi-Fi based wireless Internet service in Iowa City and Coralville, using 802.11b wave technology.
Other awards went to:
Tim Fischer, founder of The Pit Smokehouse and BBQ, $3,000; Lindi Roelofse, Xblocks (educational games), $1,000; and Will Lack and Steve Smetana, Peace of Mind (SIDS monitor), $1,000.
Karsten Temme and his team were thankful that the seed money award gave them a monetary start for their business. Temme said, "With the Merle Volding award money, we set up a demo of our wireless system and attracted an outside investor. More importantly, having judges who are entrepreneurs name our concept a winner validated our efforts and gave us confidence to move forward rapidly. Our thanks go out to the Volding's who have been a wonderful inspiration. We look forward to working together with JPEC and the University of Iowa on future projects, proving that successful student startups can grow out of university sponsored programs."