Lester Center Hosts Inaugural Global Technology Challenge

The Intel+UC Berkeley Global Technology Challenge held its inaugural competition on November 17 and 18 here at the Haas School. Funded by Intel and organized by the Lester Center, the Challenge is designed to encourage engineers and scientists from around the world, and especially from developing economies, to plan how they can development businesses that will bring the benefits of emerging technologies to the global economy. The ten competing teams were top teams from five earlier competitions: the UC Berkeley Business Plan Competition; the Business Innovation Technology (BIT) competition, a collaboration of six Russian universities; Tec de Monterrey's Premio Intel competition in Mexico; National University of Singapore's Start-Up@Singapore Enterprise Launcher; and Arizona State University's Technology Entrepreneurship Challenge.

The Challenge was organized by the Lester Center’s Associate Director, David Charron, who discussed the opportunities it offered to the participants. “Bringing winning university-based technology entrepreneurs from around the world to compete at Berkeley provided a dramatic learning experience for everyone involved. The teams were given opportunities to meet prominent Venture Capitalists, successful entrepreneurs and most importantly, each other.” The venture capitalists who acted as judges were Vineet Buch from BlueRun Ventures, Hing Wong of Walden International, Michael Aleles representing Intel Capital, Tim Wilson of Partech International, and Jay Morrison from Newbury Ventures.

At the end of the day, Harmonic Devices, the Haas team that won the 2005 UC Berkeley Business Plan Competition, was declared winner of the $25,000 first prize. Their semiconductor technology promises to dramatically improve the cost, functionality, and size of portable devices through new levels of component miniaturization and longer battery life. The two teams from Singapore were awarded the special prizes, each worth $7500. Biomers, winner of the Technology Impact Prize, is a medical device company that manufacturers translucent orthodontic braces. The winner of the Global Market Impact Prize was Infinity, with a new lens technology, FluidOptics™, for the digital imaging market of camera phones, compact digital cameras, and camcorders. Fluid Optics™ uses fluid to create better focusing and enhanced zoom features for ultra-compact size electronics.

Plans are already under way for the 2006 Challenge, where it is anticipated that the number of teams competing will double. Charron looks forward to its impact on emerging economies, “There is no doubt that entrepreneurship is globalizing. And this competition and Berkeley are leading participants in this movement.”. The Challenge is expected to grow in future years to include the top technology teams from business plan competitions around the world.