DePaul Senior With Dance Network Idea Wins DePaul New Venture Challenge Business Plan Competition May 10</p>

May 10, 2007

DePaul Senior With Dance Network Idea Wins DePaul New Venture Challenge Business Plan Competition May 10

The judging began with a field of 31 young, talented competitors, which was whittled down to 10 semi-finalists and then reduced to three finalists.

“American Idol”? No, it was the DePaul New Venture Challenge, a popular, year-long business plan competition for DePaul University students and alumni that culminated in a final showdown May 10.

Two DePaul students and one alumni team vied for $25,000 in cash and prizes by presenting their detailed business plans to a judging panel of experienced entrepreneurs and investors, who chose a champion based on the economic viability of the ventures.

The winner was Rania El-Sorrogy, a College of Commerce senior, who won $10,000 for her proposal for Dance Network, a company that provides dance enthusiasts a wide-range of dance-related programming via a video-streaming Web site and, eventually, a cable network. It was the second entrepreneur competition El-Sorrogy won this spring. She took the top prize of $5,000 in the first Illinois-Missouri region Idea to Product (I2P) collegiate entrepreneur competition sponsored by the University of Texas-Austin in April with her business plan for Livre Libre, a new system for producing books with modular sections that can be removed and placed back in the book.

This is the second year that DePaul’s Coleman Entrepreneurship Center and highly ranked entrepreneur program have sponsored the competition, according to Raman Chadha, executive director of the center and associate professor of management in the program.

“Like last year, we received a wide range of entries – from tech start-ups to gourmet food shops to non-profit organizations – by students and alumni from five of DePaul’s eight schools and colleges,” he said. “The fact that it attracts so many competitors shows the enthusiasm young people have for starting and growing their own businesses.”

“We have found that students and alumni gain a great deal of focus and discipline in developing their business plans when they enter such competitions,” he continued. “They’ve told us that the prize money gets their attention, the competition process helps them craft a much stronger plan, and then the judges’ evaluation becomes priceless when making improvements to that plan.”

The other two finalists were:

QuadMarket.com, a Web site targeting college students that combines classified advertisements with social networking. The online marketplace allows students to interact directly to buy and sell textbooks and other items. This student team was led by Bodee Kittikamron, an MBA student at DePaul’s Kellstadt Graduate School of Business.

Valyrie Professional Services, a recruiting and staffing firm that seeks to make the hiring process as easy-to-use as possible for both the employer and job seeker through the use of a proprietary process. John Reh, a 2006 graduate of DePaul’s MBA program, led this team.

Midwest Bank and marketing firm M37 are co-sponsoring the event.

Photo 1: Rania El-Sorrogy presents her business plan at the finals of DePaul New Venture Challenge.

Photo 2: A tearful Rania receives her first place prize from Raman Chadha, executive director of the Coleman Entrepreneurship Center, at the DePaul New Venture Challenge.