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From Contest to Success: Following iQ Startups

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Something that gives me* an immense amount of enjoyment is the advising that I do with student start-ups from the UConn Innovation Quest program. This program is a contest with real cash awards as well as a six week incubator program that puts the student teams directly in touch with start-up experts as well as investors. Just having a cool or innovative idea isn’t enough to compete. The purpose of the iQ program is to create real businesses that have the potential to generate revenue, jobs and growth.

The UConn program is run by Richard Dino, a professor from the School of Business with an endless amount of enthusiasm and encouragement. Keith Fox ’80, an alumnus of UConn, provides iQ support from the national program level. In addition to Rich and Keith, there are twenty or more individuals both inside and outside the University who provide mentoring and other program support.

There are many success stories that have emerged out of the program, but here is a handful of the companies with whom I have regularly stayed in touch. Congratulations to all of these business founders who are now working on their companies full-time!

Macroscopic Solutions

“Whoa, that is cool…” is what I typically hear when I show people images produced from the Macropod. No one can deny that the high resolution photos rank high on coolness.

Macroscopic Solutions, founded by Connecticut-based Mark Smith ’13 MS (CLAS), provides high-resolution imaging products for scientific researchers. Although their primary focus is to enhance scientific discovery, their product is also very popular among manufacturers, fabricators, machinists and mechanical engineers for quality, control and failure testing. Along with Mark, the team includes Daniel Saftner, Annette Evans and Jake Bellaire.

The Macropod is an automated photomacrography system that can rapidly capture and assemble multiple images. The images are post-processed so that only the areas in focus will appear in the final image. The result is an ultra-high-resolution, color image that is completely in focus and rivals that of a Scanning Electron Microscope (SEM).

The technology used in the Macropod was invented while Mark Smith was still in high school. Through his program of donating one Macropod to a school for every 10 that they sell, Mark is giving back by encouraging kids to pursue careers in STEM-related fields.

The Macropod is currently available and Mark is busy selling his product by attending trade shows and providing demos to organizations in a number of scientific and research-oriented industries.

I suppose it is no surprise that I share a bond with other fellow entrepreneurs like Mark that emerged from the UConn Department of Geology and Geophysics (now known as the Center of Integrative Geosciences).

Macroscopic Solutions can be found at www.macroscopicsolutions.com and an amazing treasure trove of images can be found here.

Dashride

After a successful launch to six universities to help college students find a safe ride home after a night of partying, Dashride made a brilliant pivot of their business concept: their technology is now a software platform that allows independent taxi and limo companies to compete with the big on-demand taxi and ride-share services.

Founded by Nadav Ulman ’12 (CLAS) and Tom Bachant ’13 (ENG), Dashride is following a start-up pattern that involves building a solid product while courting the angel and VC investor community. They have successfully completed a round of angel funding (I am among those initial investors) and are close to closing a seed round that will net them close to $1MM in working capital.

Dashride’s platform allows independent taxi and limo companies to take advantage of the ever-expanding rideshare industry. They accomplish this by providing a SaaS-based platform with minimal up-front investment. They currently have 5 employees and are based in New York City.

Dashride was recently featured in the New York Times business section in an article highlighting tech companies who are enabling small businesses to compete in larger markets. You can read that New York Times article here.

Smpl Bio

Another company that successfully emerged from the first iQ program at UConn was Smpl Bio, founded by James Lindsay ’07 (ENG), ’09 MS and Ed Hemphill. Their company simplifies the process of biomarker selection for scientific researchers through the design and use of their proprietary algorithms.

Biomarkers are used in the bio-medical world to infer the existence of a particular disease, infection or condition. The Smpl Bio team is developing a software platform to allow researchers world-wide to more quickly identify biomarkers for the diseases or conditions that are being studied. The ability to quickly identify the existence of a condition or disease has obvious benefits in terms of speed to treatment.

The team has successfully raised funds through the Connecticut Innovations Challenge Grant program as well as the University of Connecticut Third Bridge Grant. With those funds they have expanded the full-time team to include three new programmers who are doing web development and scientific programming.

James tells me that they are planning on bringing on a full-time technical sales person and veteran bio-science CEO by year end. They also have an impressive and experienced team of scientists and business advisors backing them up.

They are currently finishing up their scalable, cloud-based solution. They are targeting a Q1 2015 date for the general availability of their platform both in the US and internationally.

More Businesses On Their Way!

The 2014 iQ program recently wrapped up and I’m optimistic about the potential success of that next round of new, emerging businesses. I’m also looking forward to the next round of entrepreneurs and their ideas this coming fall!

*This article was written by Rick Kollmeyer ’82 (CLAS), alumni mentor for the UConn Innovation Quest program, and first appeared on the Blue Edge Labs blog on August 12.

Mark Schneider Wins Award for Solo-Authored Paper

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UConn School of Business doctoral student Mark Schneider has won the 2014 Decision Analysis Society Student Paper Award for a work he solo authored. His paper is titled, “Frame Dependent Utility Theory” and it presents a model of decisions under risk which is based on emerging evidence from the neuroscience of decision making. The model generalizes expected utility theory by explicitly modeling how choices are framed and how different frames systematically elicit different preferences. A simple preference foundation for the model is provided, and it is demonstrated that the model resolves important empirical violations of rational choice theory. Schneider, a resident of Mansfield, will receive his award at a meeting in San Francisco in November.

Professors Gilson, Mathieu Win Best Paper Awards

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Faculty and Ph.D. students in the School of Business’ management department have been selected for two prestigious awards in recent weeks.

Gilson, MathieuThe Journal of Occupational and Organizational Psychology (JOOP) recently recognized a paper titled “Unpacking the Cross-level Effects of Tenure Diversity, Explicit Knowledge, and Knowledge Sharing on Individual Creativity,” as Best Paper for 2013. The paper was co-authored by UConn graduate students Margaret Luciano and Hyoun Sook Lim and Professor of Management Lucy Gilson. Continue Reading

Passed Over for a Promotion? Stuck in a Job Rut? Speaker to Discuss How MBA Can ‘Catapult’ Career

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MBA SlingshotThe UConn chapter of the National Association of Women MBAs is sponsoring a program titled, “Using Business School to Catapult Your Career,” at 6 p.m. Sept. 30 at the UConn School of Business’ Graduate Learning Center, 100 Constitution Plaza, Hartford.

Guest speaker is Nicole Lindsay ’96, an award-winning author of “The MBA Slingshot for Women,” director of leadership and development at the ZOOM Foundation, and founder of DiversityMBAPrep.com.

Lindsay describes herself as a “fanatical advocate” of MBA and graduate-management education. In her career, she has supported more than 1,000 pre-MBA and MBA students, mainly women and minorities, in their application process and subsequent careers. She said the application process can be overwhelming. Fourteen years after completing her business degree, Lindsay said she is still discouraged that the number of women and minorities in MBA programs has not significantly increased.

The keynote presentation and question and answer session will be at 6 p.m., followed by a networking program at 7 p.m. For additional information or to register, please contact Amanda Spada at aspada@business.uconn.edu or call (860) 486-5498.

Lindsay earned her Bachelor of Science in Business Administration from UConn, her law degree from the University of Virginia School of Law and her MBA from the University of Virginia’s Darden School of Business.

She began her career in corporate- and community development- finance before becoming associate director of admissions and student affairs at the Yale School of Management, where she oversaw minority and women admissions and diversity student affairs. She later worked at Goldman Sachs, managing MBA recruiting initiatives at the Wharton School of Business at the University of Pennsylvania, and other prominent business programs. She later worked at Management Leadership for Tomorrow, in various roles including director of the MBA Prep program and as vice president of talent development. She then served as the founding executive director of New York Needs You (NYNY) and now is the director of leadership development for a family foundation in Connecticut.

School of Business Welcomes 14 New Faculty Members for Fall 2014

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The UConn School of Business has welcomed 14 new faculty members to its ranks this fall. “It was a very competitive year,” said Dean John A. Elliott. “We were able to hire a diverse group of women and men, including experienced faculty members and newer Ph.D. graduates. We have some senior educators, and some junior; all are excellent.”

View new faculty profiles here.

Real Estate Program Ranks in Top 10 Nationwide

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In keeping with a long-held tradition, the Center for Real Estate and Urban Economic Studies at the University of Connecticut has been recognized as one of the Top 10 programs in the nation by U.S. News and World Report.

The real estate program was listed as number 9 in the nation in the “2015 Best Colleges” report. It has been in the Top 10 for more than 15 years, said Director John Glascock.

“We have a very good team of professors and it has been that way for decades,” he said. Current faculty includes John Clapp, Ph.D., a professor of finance and real estate, who is considered one of the top researchers in his field worldwide. In addition, Professor John Harding, Ph.D., has more than 20 years of industry experience in financial services, including working as senior vice president of planning and research at both Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac.

The real estate program boasts full job placement in top corporate real estate firms in Hartford, Boston and New York, Glascock said. With active alumni in firms including JP Morgan, Cornerstone Real Estate Advisers, TIAA-CREF and UBS Global Real Estate, to name a few, the opportunities for internships and networking are many, he said.

UConn real estate students are particularly hard-working, Glascock noted. In national competitions, judges have remarked about the UConn students’ willingness to put in extra hours, as well as their ability to uncover detailed data errors that students from other colleges missed, he said.

In addition to its student training, the Center provides services to Connecticut’s real estate professionals and to the Department of Consumer Protection.

In the same publication, UConn’s undergraduate business program ranked 31 among public universities nationally, and 51 overall.

2014 AOM Best Paper in Healthcare Management Award

Posted on by Brian Kelleher

Lauren D’Innocenzo (PhD ‘14) Assistant Professor, Drexel and Margaret Luciano (MGMT ABD), co-authors: Travis Maynard (Ph.D. ’07) Associate Professor, Colorado State; John Mathieu Professor of Management, UConn; Gilad Chen, Professor of Management, Maryland, won the 2014 “Best Paper in Healthcare Management Award” at Academy of Management. “Empowered to Perform: A Multi-level Investigation of Empowerment on Performance in Hospital Units.” (A version of it is R&R at AMJ!)

 

JOOP Best Paper for 2013

Posted on by Brian Kelleher

Margaret Luciano (MGMT ABD), Hyoun Sook Lim (MGMT ABD), and Lucy Gilson, Professor of Management, UConn was selected as the Best Paper for 2013 in Journal of Occupational and Organizational Psychology (JOOP).  ” Unpacking the cross-level effects of tenure diversity, explicit knowledge, and knowledge sharing on individual creativity” will be featured JOOP’s website and include an announcement in an upcoming issue.