The Panasci Business Plan Competition is a campus-wide student business plan competition, hosted by the program in Entrepreneurship and Emerging Enterprises at the Whitman School of Management, Syracuse University. The competition takes place in the spring of every year and includes a semi-final round of 16 teams followed by a final round where the top five teams compete to win prize money.
Thanks to generous donations from the Panasci, Fetner, Goldberg and Farentinos families, we are able to award over $40,000 in prize money to the top teams whose new venture ideas represent the best potential for growth and for attracting outside financing.
- First Place: $20,000
- Second Place: $7,500
- Third Place: $2,500
- Fetner Prize in Sustainable Enterprise: $5,000
- Goldberg Prize for Technology & Innovation: $2,500
- Consumer Product Innovation Award by Architectural Mailboxes: $5,000
MEET THE WINNERS
1st Place: X Factor Lacrosse
Team members: Joe DeMarco, Scott Firman, Ben Williams, Dom Madonna
The X-Factor faceoff machine will be a completely new product concept to the lacrosse market. Pre-existing ‘self practice’ products on the market include the bounceback lacrosse wall and backup nets for missed shots. However, ours will be the first position specific product. The significant value of its faceoff machine is that it is the closest simulation to a live face-off. The technicality of the position demands constant practice. Being able to practice a faceoff alone is something that has never been a legitimate option until now.
2nd Place: Ravel
Team members: Kevin Rieck, Apurpa Patil, Sujay Mahesh, Akash Anjanappa, Tay Lotte
Ravel empowers online travel filmmakers on YouTube with incredible skill, experience, and reach to share their trips on our platform so that travelers watching can book the trip they are viewing in a seamless experience. Travel Filmmakers are eager to join due to their current weak sources of revenue from YouTube’s monetization and their want to share their experiences in a more impactful way to their audiences. Through YouTube analytics and viewer surveys and actions, it is clear these travelers want to plan trips similar to the ones they are watching. Ravel meets the highest expectations for authenticity, customization, and speed when planning a trip. Ravel uses an intelligent filtering and search technology to help people find their dream adventure and then gives them the simplicity of viewing, planning and booking their entire trip in one continuous experience. Including activities, flights, and stay. We also support interactive forums for travelers to review and share experiences they discovered for themselves.
3rd Place: Fetner Prize for Sustainable Enterprise; Goldberg Prize in Technology and Inovation: SparkCharge
Team members: Joshua Aviv, Bryan Morris, Jaydeep Sathe
SparkCharge is on a mission to revolutionize the Electric Vehicle Industry and our vision is to make electric vehicle travel more reliable. The problem we are solving is range anxiety and the overall inconvenience of charging electric vehicles. Range anxiety is the problem of running out of battery in your electric car and having nowhere to charge. SparkCharge’s solution is a portable universal charging unit for electric cars that allows electric vehicles owners to charge anytime and place they want. What makes us different is that we allow electric vehicle owners to choose how much portable battery range they want to take with them.
Consumer Product Innovation Prize: The BeanBack
Team member: Miranda Brody
The concept of this item is headwear that provides warmth and is functional for practice and play. Every great idea needs a twist to make it special. The secret sauce of BeanBack is to come up with specialty fabrics and designs to allow the wearer to express his or her individuality. From a Patriotic Stars and Stripes to Tartan Plaid, to a Baby Blue and Pink, to the school colors of the mighty Orangemen, among others, every taste style and affiliation can be expressed through the BeanBack.
Honorable mention: Busie
Team members: Josh Bain, Louis Bookoff, Seth Samowitz
Busie is an instant quoting and booking application program interface (API). It shortens and eases the process for individual charter bus operators to save time and money by streamlining the quoting and booking process. This is a business to business orientation as Busie aims to incorporate technology into the motorcoach chartering process. It will provide an algorithm to efficiently provide quotes to potential clients, a user-friendly interface, an updated website integrated with the API, e-document signing capabilities and a consolidated payment platform. Busie will license to individual motorcoach companies. The integrated platform and website will allow motorcoach companies to offer their customers a seamless transition from motorcoach research to requesting a quote.
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