The College of Business Administration at the University of Central Florida chose the final four teams at the semifinals for the annual Joust Business Plan Competition on Thursday, March 20. The Joust is one of the college’s premier events in which students present their models for a viable business venture and compete to win money and other resources to pursue this venture. Presenting sponsors for The Joust are DigiThinkIT, Inc. and Steve Felkowitz, ’79. Additional sponsors include Nperspective-CFO Services, General Counsel Advisors, P.A., DG3 Media Group, Stage One Screening Solutions and CoLab.
View photos from the event here.
This year’s finalists will compete for $75,000 in cash and prizes on April 11.
Semifinals judges included accomplished individuals such as Melanie Fernandez, ‘86 & ‘91, Eric Delisle, Scott Buescher, Jim Balaschak, ‘86 & ‘92, Julie Gaines, Ben Hoyer, George Gramatikas, ‘04, Martin Lewis, Dianne Owen, ‘93 & ‘97, Oscar Rodriguez, ‘86, Brent Sapp, Russell Slappey, CPA, Sanjay Srinivasan, ‘95, Karen Tilstra, Ph.D., Rick Wassel, ‘90, and Kate Wilson.
The Joust competition fosters risk-taking, engagement, data-driven decision making and cross-disciplinary collaboration, values encouraged by the College of Business. With advice and guidance from judges and faculty gleaned during The Joust past winners have gone on to market and sell their products and services.
The Joust finals will be held on April 11, 2014 at the FAIRWINDS Alumni Center. This competition is a combined effort of the Blackstone LaunchPad that provides free advising services for ventures and the Center for Entrepreneurial Leadership at UCF that offers support for interdisciplinary collaboration and prototyping through the Starter Lab and advanced support for student startups in the Student Venture Accelerator.