CSE Undergrad News

We’re thrilled to spread the word about the second annual Juicy Ideas Competition, sponsored by AdvantageWest and DigitalChalk!  We hope you can pass this along to interested students in computer science and related fields.

Google is excited to support the Juicy Ideas competition again this year by hosting the winning team at company headquarters in Mountain View California in Summer 2010, where winners will also each receive an Android-powered phone.

Juicy Ideas 2010 is asking you: “What can you do with data?”

Useful data streams are published by governments, private companies, NGOs, and endless websites and we want to see how you can harness this data to benefit your community in the form of a software application.  Submissions will be judged on their ability to disseminate data and benefit the community, on the usability of the application, and on the business potential of the idea.

This year’s contest is open to communities where Google operates offices or datacenters in the US, and universities within 50 km of offices are invited to participate.  We’ve also invited school from last year’s Juicy Ideas to join again.

Ready?  Form a team of 3-5 students at an eligible college or university.

Set?  Research publicly available data, come up with a business plan for that data.

Juice!  Create a software application that uses the data to benefit your community, and upload a demo video to Youtube.  You’ll be judged on the app and the video.

The contest period runs through April 11 2010, so get started at www.juicyideas.com!

There’s Still Time to Enter the UW Business Plan Competition

BPC Next Steps

1.       BPC Intent to Submit.  If you’re going to compete, please fill this out.  It is not mandatory, but highly recommended.  https://catalysttools.washington.edu/webq/survey/masses/93834

2.       Deadline to submit to the Competition is Wednesday, April 7 at 5 p.m.  Email your 5-7 page executive summary to me (masses@uw.edu).  Be sure to review the judging criteria.  This is the same judging criteria that the judges use to evaluate your executive summary.

http://www.foster.washington.edu/centers/cie/Documents/BPCJudgingCriteria.pdf

Why You Should Compete

·        Networking that counts – all judges are entrepreneurs, VC and angel investors, attorneys, alumni, and professional service providers – all from the Seattle entrepreneurial community.

·        Teams receive skilled coaching and mentoring from judges to help get them ready for the competition and beyond.

·        All plans submitted will be read by 8-10 judges and every team will receive feedback which will be aggregated and returned via email.

·        Over $60,000 in seed funding is awarded to student teams.  Win money to jump start your company!

Get in touch with Sarah Massey if you have questions.

Sarah

__________________________________

Sarah Massey
Assistant Director and BPC Program Manager
Center for Innovation & Entrepreneurship
Michael G. Foster School of Business
University of Washington
P:  206.685.9868 | masses@uw.edu <mailto:masses@u.washington.edu>
foster.washington.edu/cie <http://www.foster.washington.edu/cie/>

UW Environmental Innovation Challenge

Thinking Through “Market Opportunity” February 10, 2010, 5:30 to 7 pm in Sieg Hall 225

Still looking for a team/team members?  This is a good opportunity to meet-up.

One of the key elements of the UW Environmental Innovation Challenge is the market opportunity summary. If you build this prototype or create this computer simulation, will anyone buy it?  Is it appropriate for the audience you’ve identified? Who has a similar product or service? Who’s your competition? What are the resources on campus that you can tap into to do market research? How much research is enough? What is “addressable market size”?

To help you answer these questions, we’re bringing in John Browne, the founder and managing director of Workpump. John spent more than 25 years in the software industry (including 11 at Microsoft) and, by his own admission, can’t remember all the products he’s shipped or the projects he’s worked on. He understands every aspect of designing, developing, testing, and marketing world-class software.

In 2001 John started Workpump to bring Microsoft-quality best practices in marketing and product development to technology firms, working with clients from Silicon Valley to British Columbia. Starting in 2003 John began assembling a team of like-minded individuals who could bring years of successful operational experience to clients. He knows this stuff.

Join us on February 10—and come with your questions!

Connie Bourassa-Shaw, Director

Center for Innovation and Entrepreneurship

cbshaw@uw.edu

Pamela Tufts

Center for Innovation & Entrepreneurship
ptufts@uw.edu 206.685.3813

foster.washington.edu/cie

Join us for the Business Plan Competition Resource Nights!  If you’re interested in starting your own company or working at a start-up, this is an opportunity for you to learn about the business side.  The resource nights are open to all students – you can just show up.  More information is available on our website.

http://www.foster.washington.edu/centers/cie/businessplancompetition/Pages/schedule.aspx

Marketing in a Competitive Environment with Sharelle Klaus, CEO of DRY Soda

Thursday, January 28 from 6 – 7:30 p.m. in Sieg 134

Who are your customers? What drives them to make a purchase? How do you segment the market? Acquire the tools you need to overcome marketing challenges commonly facing startups from a woman who understands the importance of marketing, and developing and managing your brand.

Thinking Through Your Financials with Alan Dishlip, CFO of Billing Revolution

Thursday, February 4 from 6 – 7:30 p.m. in Sieg 134

Wondering what’s with all the talk about hockey sticks? Come learn the fundamentals of putting together the financials for a business plan.  Alan Dishlip will cover financial projections–what they are, how to create them, and how to avoid the common pitfalls that drive investors crazy–and he’ll give tips on how to raise capital.

Legal Issues for Start-Ups with Matthew Forkner of Fenwick & West

Thursday, February 11 from 6 – 7:30 p.m. in Sieg 134

What are the legal issues to consider in starting your own company? How do you divide equity, protect your IP or structure the company? Matthew Forkner, Fenwick &West, will walk you through the essentials.

Business Plan Competition Overview and Insights from Past Participants

Thursday, February 18 from 6 – 7:30 p.m. in Sieg 134

We’ll cover how the Competition works and what to expect.  You’ll also have the opportunity to learn from those who have gone before you. We’ll have a panel discussion with past Business Plan Competition competitors, giving insider tips and advice for WINNING and getting the most out of your experience. Panelists are Brent Lamphier of Athleon, BA ’07 and Second Place winner of the 2008 BPC, and Daniel Rossi of Nanocel, EveMBA 2010 and winner of the 2009 BPC, and Ann Greeley, MBA 2002 and Second Place winner of the 2002 BPC.  Moderator will be Jason Hahn, MBA 2010 and BPC Co-Chair.

Bootstrapping with Steve McCracken, CEO of CultureMob

Thursday, February 25 from 6 – 7:30 p.m. in Sieg 134

How are you going to finance your new venture? MOST companies are not appropriate for venture funding but instead are self-funded or bootstrapped. How can you start a venture on a shoestring? Come learn funding strategies for footing the bill (and keeping more of your equity!).

What Do Investors Look For? with Rebecca Lovell, Executive Director of the Northwest Entrepreneur Network

Thursday, March 4 from 6 – 7:30 p.m. in Sieg 134

Why should an investor put money into your company instead of someone else’s? What are the critical elements you need to have and what could kill the deal? This session walks the audience through potential sources of investment dollars as well as HOW to give a pitch in a compelling way.  Will feature an investor pitch from the CEO of Findood, Jamen Shively. 

Resource Nights are offered by the UW Center for Innovation and Entrepreneurship. These sessions are open to students and the public.  To learn more about the Resource Nights or the Business Plan Competition, contact Sarah Massey at masses@uw.edu or 206.685.9868.

http://www.foster.washington.edu/cie

. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .
Sarah Massey, Assistant Director

Center for Innovation & Entrepreneurship

Michael G. Foster School of Business

University of Washington
P:  206.685.9868 | masses@uw.edu

If any of you have research or capstone projects that fit with this, you may want to attend the info session on Monday.

From: Pamela Tufts [mailto:ptufts@uw.edu]
Sent: Thursday, January 21, 2010 5:47 PM
To: Crystal Eney
Subject: INFO Session MONDAY – UW ENVIRONMENTAL INNOVATION CHALLEGE

UW ENVIRONMENTAL INNOVATION CHALLENGE

INFO SESSION & PIZZA!

Monday, January 25, 3:30-4:30, EEB 303

Do you have a passion for clean-tech, the smarts to play in the emerging green economy, and the desire to leverage your engineering background to make an impact?

The UW Environmental Innovation Challenge can provide a great platform.

$10,000 GRAND PRIZE – Intent to Submit Feb 11

(Some prototype funding still available – come ask us about it!)

Questions?  ptufts@uw.edu

Pam Tufts

Center for Innovation & Entrepreneurship
Michael G. Foster School of Business, University of Washington

foster.washington.edu/cie Intent to Submit – Feb 11
P: 206.685.3813

GlobalGiving (www.globalgiving.org) recently opened up its platform/APIs to developers. We are launching a developer contest later this week in partnership with eBay (a long-time corporate partner) and are hoping to promote the contest through some schools, including University of Washington. Stanford, Berkeley, Harvard and several other universities will be  promoting it, and eBay promoted the contest to its  developer network last week. The contest web page is (www.globalgiving.org/api-contest).  Applications will be accepted through March 3rd and winners will be announced March 19th. The winning developer gets a trip to visit a GlobalGiving project in one of the 85 countries in which GlobalGiving projects operate.
(more…)

Ed passed on the link to the official listing of 2010 Outstanding Undergraduate Researcher Award Winners:

http://www.cra.org/Activities/awards/undergrad/2010.html

Major congratulations, Justine!!

Check out this excellent opportunity to help with  a super useful tool and get some extra project experience (great for future interviews)!

From CSE grad student Brian Ferris:

I work on a project called OneBusAway (http://onebusaway.org/) that aims to improve the usability of public transit.  OneBusAway provides access to schedule and real-time arrival information across a number of user interfaces for King County Metro buses (and other agencies are on the way).  OneBusAway is also open-source software.

In order to get more people involved in OneBusAway development, we are announcing the OneBusAway Winter of Code 2009.  Similar to the Google Summer of Code, we’ve identified a number of tasks, both large and small, to get developers started with hacking on OneBusAway. (more…)

—–Original Message—–
From: faculty-admin@cs.washington.edu [mailto:faculty-admin@cs.washington.edu] On Behalf Of Stuart Reges
Sent: Sunday, November 08, 2009 1:51 AM
To: faculty – Mailing List; cs-staff – Mailing List; cs-ugrads – Mailing List; cs-grads – Mailing List; vgrads – Mailing List
Subject: ACM Programming Contest

I wanted to share results for the Pacific Northwest Programming
Contest that was held today. We compete in a region that stretches
from southern California up to Canada and over to Hawaii. The contest
is held at five different sites simultaneously. Marty Stepp and I
traveled with our three teams to the University of Oregon in Eugene to
compete.

As usual, our particular site had the most teams and we dominated our
site. We placed 1st, 2nd, and 3rd among the 22 teams from Washington
and Oregon competing at the University of Oregon. And we had our best
showing ever in the region. UW teams placed 5th and 6th in the region
out of 77 teams total. Those two teams placed above all the teams
from Berkeley and Simon Fraser who are normally very tough
competitors. They were beaten only by teams from UBC, Stanford, and
the University of Victoria.

Our teams were:

Team Captcha (1st at site, 5th in region):
Jeff Booth, Michael Sloan, Will Johnson

Firefighter Endorsed (2nd at site, 6th in region):
Joshua Snyder, Kevin Wallace, Alyssa Harding

Three Bytes Deficient (3rd at site, 23rd in region):
Steven Howard, Conrad Meyer, Tyler Smith

Please join me in congratulating them for their outstanding performance.

Complete results can be found at this url:

http://www.acmicpc-pacnw.org/Standings/2009.htm

–Stuart