University of Oregon students vie for Venture Quest business plan championship

EUGENE, Ore. -- (Nov. 26, 2007) -- Entrepreneurial MBA business students at the University of Oregon will present venture concepts and compete for a $1,500 first place award at the Lundquist Center for Entrepreneurship’s Venture Quest business plan competition beginning at 8:30 a.m., Friday, Nov. 30.

The event, which is free and open to the public, will be held in Room 211 of the Lillis Business Complex, 955 E. 13th Ave. The awards will be presented at 2:45 p.m. on Friday.

The competition will feature six teams of MBA and JD/MBA students from the UO Charles H. Lundquist College of Business. Venture concepts in this year's contest range from a technology-based body scanning fitness system to personnel-sourcing services for non-profit enterprises.

Over the past three years, four teams that competed in the Venture Quest competitions have gone on to complete a successful venture launch.

In the morning flights, each team will give a 15-minute presentation of its venture plan to a judging panel of top Northwest business professionals. Following the presentation, each team will face a “live fire” 20-minute question-and-answer session during which members must further clarify and defend their plan.

Teams are judged on the viability of their ventures, the quality of their plans and presentations and the team’s ability to handle the judges’ inquiries effectively.

Winners of each morning flight will advance to the afternoon finals with a 60-second Elevator Pitch competition between the second-place finishers determining the third team to advance. All teams making it to the finals round will receive cash prizes.

There are two Venture Quest competition events held during the school year. The fall term event is for MBAs. The spring term competition is for undergraduate majors and undergraduate minors.

The competition is one element of the Lundquist College of Business vision for business education to create experiential learning opportunities for students.

US News & World Report recently listed the Lundquist Center for Entrepreneurship as the 16th-best entrepreneurship center in the nation. The program has been nationally ranked every year of its 17-year history. From 2003 to 2006 Entrepreneur Magazine ranked the Lundquist Center No. 1 in alumni satisfaction and number two by peer school program directors in the publication's regional rankings of collegiate entrepreneurship programs. The Lundquist Center ranked in the top 4 percent of the more than 800 entrepreneurship programs identified by the magazine.

About the University of Oregon
The University of Oregon is a world-class teaching and research institution and Oregon's flagship public university. The UO is a member of the Association of American Universities (AAU), an organization made up of 62 of the leading public and private research institutions in the United States and Canada. Membership in the AAU is by invitation only. The University of Oregon is one of only two AAU members in the Pacific Northwest.

Contact: Julie Brown, 541-346-3185, julbrown@uoregon.edu

Source: Randy Swangard, 541-346-3312, swangard@uoregon.edu

Link: Lundquist Center for Entrepreneurship, www.lcb.uoregon.edu/lce

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