MEDFORD/SOMERVILLE, Mass. – A team of entrepreneurs hoping to develop a weather shield for motorcyclists in Southeast Asia and a second team that proposed a plan to build low-cost, high-quality, water-free toilets for Kenyan slums have earned top honors in Tufts University's seventh annual business plan competition.
The two teams were among 11 finalists in the competition. Six teams competed in the Classic Business Plan Competition and five competed in the Social Entrepreneurship Competition. Coordinated through the entrepreneurial leadership center at Tufts University's Gordon Institute, the two business plan competitions allow students from schools across the university to compete.
Corporate sponsors for the competitions include Cummings Properties, Deloitte, Dun and Bradstreet, Lowenstein Sandler, Skadden Arps, The Capital Network (TCN), the National Collegiate Inventors & Innovators Alliance (NCIIA) and Vertrue Incorporated.
Roof For Two, the top winner in the Classic Business Plan category, is developing a company that will produce a shield, combining a windshield and roof, for people who ride motorcycles in Southeast Asian countries. The team included Tufts School of Arts and Sciences seniors Andrew Altman, David Chen, Maxime Pinto, Karen Randhawa and junior Justin Ferranti.
The top winner in the Social Entrepreneurship competition was Sanergy. The company hopes to, manufacture low-cost, high-quality, water-free toilets to reduce sanitation-related diseases in Kenya's slums. The waste will be collected and converted into biogas and organic fertilizer. Sanergy has already launched the pilot phase of their enterprise. The team included Fletcher School student Gaurav Tiwari along with Lindsay Stradley, David Auerbach and Ani Vallabhaneni.
Each winning team received cash awards. Roof For Two received $15,000 in cash while Sanergy received $7,500. Their winnings also included in-kind services from sponsors.
For a complete listing of all of the winners in the 2011 competition go to: http://gordon.tufts.edu/entLeader/beyond/competition.asp
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Tufts University, located on three Massachusetts campuses in Boston, Medford/Somerville, and Grafton, and in Talloires, France, is recognized among the premier research universities in the United States. Tufts enjoys a global reputation for academic excellence and for the preparation of students as leaders in a wide range of professions. A growing number of innovative teaching and research initiatives span all Tufts campuses, and collaboration among the faculty and students in the undergraduate, graduate and professional programs across the university's eight schools is widely encouraged.
