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OU students win top honors at governor's cup competition

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OU STUDENTS WIN TOP HONORS AT GOVERNOR’S CUP COMPETITION

FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE

April 16, 2010   

OKLAHOMA CITY – University of Oklahoma student teams won five of the seven top honors, including the new OG&E Positive Energy Award, at the 2010 Donald W. Reynolds Governor’s Cup Collegiate Business Plan Competition in Oklahoma City on April 15.  All five of the winning technologies were developed at OU.  

“The outstanding performance of our students in the Governor’s Cup competition reflects the strength of the Price College of Business and the top 10 national ranking of our entrepreneurship program,” said OU President David L. Boren.  “Our student teams have done an excellent job.”

The first and third spots in the undergraduate division were won by OU teams, with the first-place, $20,000 prize going to OU for the UniPHI business plan, which presented a technology that will revolutionize the communication of health care by standardizing and networking differently formatted medical data stored in databases across the nation. Team members include Blake Trippet, Hamid Pezeshkian, Lucas Rice and Daniel Parrot.

OU team Samson Technologies was awarded second-place honors in the undergraduate division. Samson Technologies’ team members are Daniel and Yonathan Reches. Their business concept proposes to use human hair as reinforcement fiber as part of the structural strength in concrete in markets including Haiti and the Dominican Republic. Lowell Busenitz, professor of entrepreneurship at the Price College of Business, served as faculty adviser for both of the winning undergraduate teams.

In the graduate division, OU’s In-Line Imaging and Zephyrus business plans took home first- and second-place honors. In-Line Imaging’s team includes Michael Linville, T.J. Moen, Holly Roe, Tobi Olusola, Ryan Reber and Evan Mayse with faculty adviser, Michael Manning. They presented the development of technology that emits less radiation and produces higher-quality images than current mammography devices. Zephyrus developed proprietary wind resource mapping algorithms, which when integrated with other mapping data enhances the value of an analysis package for a site selection process. Team members are Austin Spires, Lindsay Smith, Jessie Haffener, Matthew Collier and Sam Galoob with faculty adviser, Cameron McCoy. Zephyrus also was awarded the inaugural OG&E Positive Energy Award, created to recognize the team that develops the best business plan around technology that provides energy generation, conservation, new delivery methods or other technology to enhance energy generation.

The teams are sponsored by OU’s Price College of Business and the Center for the Creation of Economic Wealth. The Price College of Business’ Entrepreneurship program was ranked by Entrepreneur magazine in association with The Princeton Review as 11th in the nation and U.S. News & World Report ranked the program 18th. OU’s Center for the Creation of Economic Wealth provides an interdisciplinary environment for researchers, entrepreneuers, and students to collaborate in growing and diversifying Oklahoma’s economy through the nurturing of technology-based enterprises.

The goal of the Donald W. Reynolds Governor’s Cup Collegiate Business Plan Competition is to encourage students of Oklahoma universities and colleges to act upon their entrepreneurial ideas and develop skills to lead tomorrow's innovative new businesses.  The business plan competition is in its sixth year.