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Upcoming Events
May
31
BASES and Sponsors Commit $50K Towards Building Next Gen Entrepreneurs
STANFORD UNIVERSITY, Palo Alto, CA–May 29, 2009–BASES and its sponsors are committing $50,000 towards building the next generation of entrepreneurs. The Business Association of Stanford Entrepreneurial Students (BASES), one of the largest student entrepreneurship organizations in the United States, is working with leading firms to promote entrepreneurship at Stanford University. In addition to inviting prominent leadership giants in the business world to speak on campus in the “Entrepreneurial Thought Leaders” seminar (ETL), hosting a competition to promote social entrepreneurship, providing mixers with business mentors, connecting students with potential careers in business, and creating a community to foster the business spirit, BASES hosts one of the country’s largest entrepreneurial competitions, called the “E-Challenge.”
This year’s winners include the following: first place goes to HemorX, a medical device company with a better solution for hemorrhoids, and the tie for second place goes to Togetherville and Properat. Togetherville is a new child-friendly internet interface with community building and educational tools, and Properat is a system designed to “solve the email problem” by consolidating inboxes with mass email into easily readable formats. BASES wishes to congratulate this year’s winners, finalists, as well as all who contributed business plans and hopefully learned from the experience.
E-Challenge participants learn about venture formation and explore their entrepreneurial dreams in a supportive environment. Throughout the year, the E-Challenge team encourages entrants to participate in workshops, team building activities, a mentorship program, and the Industry Thought Leaders’ Seminar. It is an opportunity to share and develop skills, produce business ideas, and start companies.
“Entrepreneurship is important especially in an economical downturn,” says Alvin Tse, Co-Vice President of the E-Challenge. “It not only creates opportunities for others but is also the main agent for change and improvement. Though some people think that entrepreneurship cannot be taught, we believe that education still provides the fundamental basis and impetus for the next generation to explore entrepreneurship on their own.”
Geoff Woo, a Stanford sophomore who helped organize the E-Challenge, says, “E-Challenge has given me insight on both sides of the start-up world: the entrepreneurs’ and the VC’s. I now have a better picture of what VCs look at when they’re evaluating start-ups, and what characteristics make a good start-up. This experience will be valuable when I venture out myself in the next few years.” BASES unites students, professors, and professionals to promote entrepreneurship on the Stanford campus. Besides its competitions, the 45 BASES Officers organize a wide-range of events for its more than 5000 members.
BASES, a non-profit, student-run organization, was founded in 1996 by a group of five Stanford University engineering students. They looked to gain top-level business advice and experience from industry leaders in the high-tech world, including high-profile CEOs, engineers, and prominent venture capitalists. Chartered with cultivating the next generation of entrepreneurs, these students received valuable insight as they developed their own business ventures and entered the working world.
Today, BASES has evolved to include undergraduate and graduate students along with faculty members from all schools at Stanford, including Business, Engineering, Law, Medicine, Humanities and Science. BASES strives to help strengthen entrepreneurship collaboration at Stanford by working with a variety of student groups across campus.
“We are empowering students to be true entrepreneurs through the E-Challenge,” says Alvin Tse. “Managing the business plan competition is no easy task. Ultimately, it is a very rewarding experience, and I learned a lot through leading a great team with my Co-VP Ryan Kottenstette.” The competitions run from February to May each year and have spawned several successful ventures including Voltage Security (2002), T-RAM (2000) and Ingenuity (1998).
BASES is made possible through the generous sponsorship of Lightspeed Venture Partners, Hummer Winblad Venture Partners, Morgenthaler, New Enterprise Associates, Mohr Davidow Ventures, Silicon Valley Bank, Plug And Play Tech Center, Philips, and Northwest Venture Partners.
For more information, contact:
Matt Cook
(310) 944-1661
mscook@stanford.edu
May
21
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By:
Social E-Challenge, Social E-Challenge
Filed Under General, Social E-Challenge
The BASES Social E-Challenge, one of the premier student-run social entrepreneurship business plan competitions in the country, will be hosting its final round event next Friday, May 29th at Stanford University in Building 320, Room 105. The event is free and open to the public and will start at 1:30pm. Our six finalist teams will present their ventures to a distinguished panel of judges. $50,000 will be awarded, with $25,000 going to the 1st place team. Let’s meet the finalists!
Driptech
Driptech Inc. produces low cost drip irrigation systems for use by small farmers in developing countries. The innovative design and proprietary, automated manufacturing system improves upon current drip systems by eliminating a large number of parts, reducing installation time and dramatically lowering costs. It has the potential to become the most cost effective and easily used drip irrigation system for small plot farmers in developing nations. Through pilot tests with farmers in India, Driptech has gained valuable insight intohow to help the developing world’s rural farmers produce food for consumption and sale in the face of water scarcity. Through novel manufacturing and distribution Driptech can reach the hundreds of millions of people who have been unable to use drip irrigation until now, and in the process, save tremendous amounts of water.
OneBreath
Recent evidence of dangerous avian flu outbreaks around the world has ignited concern over the possibility of a flu pandemic. If a pandemic were to occur, demand for mechanical ventilators would quickly outstrip supply. In the developing nations of China, India, Africa, and South America, over 10 million people die each year from respiratory illnesses complicated by lack of access to a ventilator. OneBreath is a low cost ventilator specifically for use in large-scale emergencies and hospitals in the developing world. Our ventilator is portable, disposable, and battery powered. At a production cost around $75, OneBreath makes pandemic stockpiling a viable option in the US and provides an affordable choice for clinics and hospitals in the developing world.
Re:Motion Designs
Worldwide, a profound number of people lack mobility due to physical impairment. In India alone, it is estimated that over 10 million people suffer from locomotive disabilities. Trauma due to war or accidents, and diseases such as diabetes, result in a global rate in the hundreds of thousands of new lower-limb amputees each year. For the 2 million amputees in the US as well as other developed nations, modern assistive technology has re-mobilized lower limb amputees, but typically costs in the thousands, or tens of thousands, of dollars. Re:Motion is a non-profit venture that provides high performance, extreme-affordability prosthetic components for developing world amputees. Our initial product, The JaipurKnee, is a polymer-based polycentric knee joint that can be manufactured for a cost less than $20 US. The JaipurKnee is currently in field trials in India and has been fitted on over 40 patients to date.
Respira Design
Asthma afflicts 200 million children worldwide. 70% of them live in the developing world, where they lack access to prompt, effective and affordable care, These children suffer frequent asthma attacks that lead to chronic disability and lifelong respiratory disease. Treatment for acute attacks is typically delivered in emergency rooms, where it is delayed and expensive. Respira Design produces and distributes a $1 device made from paper that extends the treatment of asthma into low-resource settings. This device improves the quality of care and saves the healthcare system hundreds of dollars each time it averts an emergency room visit. Respira Design has chosen Mexico as its initial target market to build on relationships developed during its two years of fieldwork in Mexican health clinics. The device has been validated in the laboratory and is currently undergoing clinical trials, with plans for a staged rollout throughout Mexico over the next five years.
SEE College Prep
SEE College Prep delivers high impact, quality summer SAT preparation programs to disadvantaged high school students. SEE has created a 5-week, 42-hour program and curriculum it carries out through partnerships with existing college preparation programs that lack the resources to fully prepare their students for college. By offering its programs to higher income students who pay $699 for the program, SEE has found a compelling path to financial sustainability and a way to ensure that its programs are market quality. This summer, SEE will triple in size to serve 360 low-income high school students at 10 program sites in 4 California counties.
Sustainable Health Enterprises (SHE)
Sustainable Health Enterprises (SHE) is a start-up social enterprise that uses market-based approaches to initiate businesses that yield a social and financial return on investment in developing countries, especially in the health sector. Its first spin-out business is sanitary pad franchising to stem the significant costs of girls and women not having access to affordable, eco-friendly, sanitary pads when they menstruate. SHE will ensure the development and uptake of a reliable product by sourcing local, inexpensive raw materials, leveraging existing networks, and facilitating a sustainable business model operated and owned by women in the community that can be replicated globally wherever the need exists. SHE’s “proto-pad”, coupled with its business model, reduces product price by over 30%. SHE therefore aims to reduce the educational, economic, environmental, and health costs of girls and women lacking sustainable access to affordable, eco-friendly, sanitary pads.
This is one of the strongest groups of finalists we have ever had, and all of us are eagerly looking forward to how the event unfolds.
May
1
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By:
Ricky Yean, Co-President
Filed Under General
Dear BASES Community,
As the 2008-2009 academic year comes to a close, BASES is looking for student talent to join us in 2009-2010. We are very excited and have already begun planning for next year. Please review the document below or click here and browse around on the website to get a sense of what we do. You can access the application form here (http://bases2008.wufoo.com/forms/bases-20092010-leadership-application/). While there are still many great things to come before the summer, we thank you for a great year!
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