May 14, 2012

The Laurence A. Baiada Institute for Entrepreneurship announced the six students/student teams selected as finalists in the 2012 Business Plan Competition and four of the six finalists are Westphal students/student teams! The breadth of our College's creative thinking and business acumen is exhibited by their diverse original concepts:

TagAssist is a company/service that creates Braille garment care tags for the visually impaired, allowing one to do his or her own laundry without assistance. TagAssist is a tool to enhance independent living for visually impaired individuals. The Design & Merchandising team members are: Jessica Powell, Mallory West, Meghan Hamme, and Kristen Chleboski.

The Peaks Project is a non-profit organization that will give children in cities a chance to participate in winter sports, specifically skiing and snowboarding. Since winter sports are expensive, many kids have never tried them. Molly Tarlofsky, Entertainment & Arts Management student, is the creator of the project.

NOMnivore vending machines' mission is to provide allergy-free, fast, healthy and tasty specialty snacks to the Drexel community eliminating the hassle of traveling to specialty food stores or being forced to go without good food. The Design & Merchandising team members are: Ashley Santee, Kate Wilt, Lauren Stahl, and Raina Passalacqua.

The Arsenal House is a vegetarian/vegan restaurant that doubles as a music venue. The Music Industry team members are: Meghan Signora, Amanda Moorhead, Joe Hoban, and Jon Herman. 

The six finalists presented their business plans at the Pitch Competition on April 25th. The teams presented their plans to a panel of outside professionals, who had already read each of the completed business plans. Prizes will be awarded to the first, second and third place winners. The cash prizes are $3,000 for first place, $2,000 for second and $1,000 for third place.

Larry Epstein was the faculty mentor for The Arsenal House and The Peaks Project. Beth Phillips was the faculty mentor for TagAssist and NOMnivore.