ASU announces business competition winners

An implement to stop polytube blowouts in farm irrigation equipment, tents for the homeless, and a ring with coded patient information were among the winners at the Arkansas State University Fall Business Plan Competition.

“We improved this year,” event coordinator Dr. Erick Chang said. “Our competition had 49 judges in total, our first elevator pitch presented in Mandarin, and thanks to the ASU Foundation for giving us the chance to give real cash to our winners. It was exciting to see all the teams leaving with an envelope with real money to distribute among themselves.”

The competition is open to all college students. To enter, students wrote an innovative business idea and plan and documented it in no more than two pages. Entrants were allowed to work in teams of up to six people.

Student Nathan Bailey won first place and $1,000 in the business plan. Bailey has a patent-pending creation called the Bailey Patch. It stops blowouts in farm irrigation systems. In the freshman category, Path Pack won. Students Sarah Handloser, Deanna Rigdon, Timi Killian, and Rylee Marsh proposed selling tents to benefit the homeless. The win earned the group $600.

A product called Quick Med won the elevator pitch contest. The product proposed is a ring with coded, patient medical information. It was presented by students Riley Talbut, Jansenn Wiedower, Paxton Washington, and Megan Holloway. First place for the most innovative idea went to APC, an automatic bowling pin cleaning system. Students Kevin Page, Tomomi Hosoi, Terry Poole and Yasmine King won $250.

ASU Innovation System Director Ty Keller said he will meet with several competitors from the competition to discuss building prototypes.

“Our goal is to be an initial stage to those teams willing to participate in the 2017 (Donald W. Reynolds) Governor’s Cup,” Chang previously said. In April 2015, ASU students won $35,000 at the Governor’s Cup held at the Statehouse Convention Center in Little Rock.