Student Team Wins $10,000 in Business Plan Competition

School Dean of Business Dean Michael Knetter, at left, is shown with student winner Mustapha Ould Eleya, Professor Anne Miner, student winner Shailesh Ghimire, and Elton Aberle, dean of the College of Agricultural and Life Sciences.

A business plan for a process that creates electricity using biomass products won first prize and $10,000 for a team of students this spring in the G. Steven Burrill Technology Business Plan competition.

This is the fifth year of the competition. Teams from disciplines across campus presented their business plans to a panel of experts. Business concepts ranged from simple outsourced manufactured items to sophisticated biotech business plans. In total, UW-Madison students walked away with $22,000 in prize money from this year's competition.

The G. Steven Burrill competition is supported by the University of Wisconsin-Madison Technology Enterprise Cooperative, the School of Business, the College of Engineering and the College of Agricultural and Life Sciences. Major funding is provided by G. Steven Burrill, a 1966 graduate of the School of Business and an internationally known spokesman for the life sciences and high-tech industries. Within the business school, it is co-sponsored by the Erdman Center for Manufacturing and Technology Management and the Weinert Center for Entrepreneurship.