The recent full moon brought with it some shining STARt-up companies in the form of the Donald W. Reynolds Governor’s Cup (DWRGC) winners. The teams participated in Arkansas’s premier collegiate business plan competition that is sponsored by the Arkansas Economic Acceleration Foundation (AEAF), an affiliate of the Arkansas Capital Corporation (ACC). With constellations circling overhead, an enormous screen on center stage, two huge side screens and a fast-paced, well-choreographed presentation, the collegiate team winners’ names were announced. Lisa Fischer, a morning show announcer at KURB-98.5, former NBA basketball star and UALR Assistant Coach Joe Kleine and Honorary Event Chairman John H. Tyson kept the audience entertained and enlightened in regard to the winners. [Read more…]

A team led by Ellen Brune, a University of Arkansas doctoral student in chemical engineering, won a March 13 business plan competition at the University of Nebraska, the UA said Tuesday. It is the third UA graduate student team to take the top prize in a 2012 business plan contest that carries an automatic berth for the Venture Labs Investment Competition. The UA said it is the first time any university has won three qualifying contests in the same year for what is billed as the “Super Bowl of business plan competitions.” “The University of Arkansas has been excelling in national and international business plan competitions since 2009, but we reached new heights in 2012,” Carol Reeves, associate vice provost for entrepreneurship and a professor in the department of management at the Sam M. Walton College of Business, said in a news release. [Read more…]

AFS Just Wants a ‘Good Piece of Steak’

by Mark Carter

A good piece of steak. Lawson Hembree is simply trying to make sure you get one. He’s the co-founder and CEO of Innovate Arkansas client firm and John Brown University startup Agricultural Food Systems. AFS is developing a handheld device called the TenderID that measures the tenderness of raw beef carcasses right on the line in processing plants. [Read more…]

Several Holt Middle School 7th grade students had the chance to turn their ideas for starting a business into reality when they were selected to sell their products at an Expo in Little Rock by the Y.E.S. for Arkansas Empowering Entrepreneurs program. The selected groups’ products were: Shnibiti Bags, collapsible shopping bags; and Smart Pillows, pillows with a pocket for carrying a book or phone along on a car trip or a park visit. [Read more…]

Y.E.S. for Arkansas, a statewide business plan competition for fifth to eight graders, announced the winning teams today following Expo Day at Park Plaza Mall. Twenty-six finalist teams were previously selected as those with the Best Business Plans and Most Innovative Ideas.  Today they competed for Best Retail Booth and Marketing Awards in the 7th annual event.  The teams were selected in December from a field of 275 teams made up of nearly 1,000 students from across Arkansas.  All of the teams created a business plan for a new concept so they could compete for an opportunity to turn their ideas into reality. Winners in the four categories are: [Read more…]

John Brown University swept the Undergraduate Finals in the fourth-annual Donald W. Reynolds Governor’s Cup Tri-State business plan competition in Las Vegas, and a team from the University of Arkansas earned Second Place in Graduate Finals. The Arkansas teams were awarded First and Second Places in Undergraduate Finals and Second Place in Graduate Finals, which included cash prizes that can be used as funds to start their businesses. Faculty advisers also received cash awards of $2,500. Top honors at Tri-State went to:  [Read more…]

Students from John Brown University in Siloam Springs won four of six top prizes Wednesday at the 11th annual Donald W. Reynolds Governor’s Cup college business plan competition. JBU swept the top three spots in the overall undergraduate division and took third place overall in the graduate division. JBU is a private, Christian university in Siloam Springs with roughly 2,100 students. Teams from the University of Arkansas, Fayetteville, won first and second place in the graduate division. [Read more…]

Five employees hunched behind desks at an office in the Arkansas Research and Technology Park in Fayetteville to finish paperwork for a grant proposal to help their new company keep operating. “It’s all up to us to make it happen,” said Douglas Hutchings, chief executive officer of Silicon Solar Solutions. The company has landed some $400,000 in grants and attracted private investment but is not yet profitable. Hutchings projects the company will be in the black in 2012, he said. Silicon Solar Solutions licensed a patent from the University of Arkansas at Fayetteville for solar technology that costs 30 percent less and does not use hazardous material like some other solar panels, Hutchings said. The company is working to refine the product, market it and identify manufacturers who are interested in using it with their own production facilities, Hutchings said. [Read more…]

Five employees hunched behind desks at an office in the Arkansas Research and Technology Park in Fayetteville to finish paperwork for a grant proposal to help their new company keep operating. “It’s all up to us to make it happen,” said Douglas Hutchings, chief executive officer of Silicon Solar Solutions. The company has landed some $400,000 in grants and attracted private investment but is not yet profitable. Hutchings projects the company will be in the black in 2012, he said. [Read more…]

The best business plans from college and university teams statewide were recently selected to compete in the next round of the state’s premier business plan competition. Teams from nine Arkansas colleges and universities were announced as finalists in the Donald W. Reynolds Governor’s Cup Graduate and Undergraduate Business Plan Competition today, in the eleventh annual contest. Twelve undergraduate and six graduate teams will advance to the next level. In the next round, the 12 advancing semi-finalist undergraduate teams will make a 20-minute presentation after which they will answer questions from judges for 15 minutes. Two judge’s panels will determine the six finalist undergraduate teams. [Read more…]

BiologicsMD of Fayetteville announced Tuesday that it has recieved a $2.3 million grant from the U.S. Department of Defense to futher develop a drug for osteoporosis. Company President Paul Mlakar Jr. said the grant will be spent over two years to pay for more testing of the drug and to shepherd it through the early stages of the approval process. [Read more…]