At the University of Arkansas, students from Dr. Carol Reeves’ New Venture Development class are preparing to conquer the world, or save it, or both. In Haiti, impoverished people are echoing American complaints about modern life using words that hit awfully close to home. This is all related. I spent a day in Fayetteville last week for a story I am writing for a business magazine. It’s about the Donald W. Reynolds Governor’s Cup, a competition where college students create and present business plans for cash prizes. For the students in Reeves’ class, this is not merely a class project. They’re looking to raise money, meet people and make deals. Seth Shumate, 28, has invented a manufacturing process producing the biggest leap in solar energy efficiency since the early 1970s. His Picasolar team has already won a business plan competition in Toronto. Then there’s Calvin Smith, 28, a Marine combat veteran whose team is trying to market a home-based device allowing people to easily test for infectious diseases and food allergies. He’s already raised a pretty good chunk of cash to complete the FDA approval process. Stephen Kayode is trying to market a portable and disposable adult male circumcision product. That’s an uncomfortable subject, but adult male circumcision is a primary strategy in the battle against AIDS in the Third World. This product, if it works, would allow health workers to travel into villages and do the deed on an outpatient basis rather than requiring men to come to the city to have surgery. He’s 41, by the way, and from Nigeria. Read the full article from Arkansas News, here.
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