Team wins national business plan competition

Three students from the Weinert Center for Entrepreneurship took first prize April 13 in a national MBA business plan competition in San Diego, Calif.

This is the second year in a row that a team from the Weinert Center has won the prestigious competition.

Graduate students Brian Pope, Jeff Prochnow and Steve Royko won with a business plan created for Imago Scientific Instruments, a Madison-based high technology company that is developing a three-dimensional atom probe microscope to assist firms in the field of nanotechnology.

The team presented the business plan for Imago to a panel of entrepreneurs, venture capitalists and investors. Six teams — including students from Indiana University, University of Texas, University of Illinois, and Purdue — competed with the UW–Madison team in the final round of the Nasdaq Qualcomm San Diego State University Venture Challenge.

Participants in this competitive three-day event came from as far away as South Africa and Canada and included major university entrepreneurship programs.

The Wisconsin team worked with executives of Imago to develop a business plan and presentation for the competition. The student team was advised by business professor Robert Pricer, co-director of the Weinert Center, along with Phil Greenwood and Jay Ebben, also of the Weinert Center.

Imago’s proprietary technology originated from research performed by staff at the Materials Science department of the College of Engineering. The technology is licensed, in part, from the Wisconsin Alumni Research Foundation.

The team receives a first-place award of $15,000.