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Jerry Engel, Dave Charron, and Bplan winner AutoTB Participate in
World Innovation Summit's Global Entrepreneurship Competition



Berkeley faculty and students were active participants in HiT Barcelona, a global gathering of the world’s leading innovators, experts and investors, held June 17-19, 2009. The conference included a Plenary Congress, Innovation Marketplaces for each of three key industry sectors - Telecom, Cleantech and Healthcare, and a Global Entrepreneurship Competition.

 

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Lester Center executive director Jerry Engel served as chair of the Global Entrepreneurship Competition’s World Nominating Committee, and recorded a video welcome for the competition:


 


Dave Charron, Lester Center associate director, participated in a panel discussion titled: "Operations: From Technology to Product" and Engel and Charron both delivered closing remarks at the Global Entrepreneurship Competition.


By virtue of their first place finish in the UC Berkeley Business Plan Competition, the AutoTB team was invited to the Global Entrepreneurship Competition as a finalist. AutoTB has developed a system for rapid and inexpensive diagnosis of tuberculosis, a major public health threat worldwide.

 

Bplan winners


Kelly Karns & Adnan Iqbal of Bplan 1st Place winner AutoTB (holding check),
flanked by Bplan co-chairs Angus Hildreth & Richard Mordini,
were invited to the HiT Barcelona Global Entrepreneurship Competition

 

 

At the competition, 20 finalist entrepreneurs presented their business plans to more than 100 institutional investors. Five global winners, receiving prizes of 5-50,000 euros, now have the opportunity to open European offices in Barcelona. The winners of the 90,000 Euros awards were Bmat, Spain (1st), The Broccoli Project, South Africa (2nd), Polyskin, India (3rd), Echopixel Techonologies, Mexico (Best Presentation) and The Broccoli Project (Best Social Value).


Bmat is based in Barcelona and specializes in the development of music and audio software that understands music and organizes in a human readable and intuitive way a service that tracks content everywhere. Bmat uses advanced analysis tools to create new intuitive possibilities to interact with digital music. Bmat offers a sound search engine, an intelligent player that adapts music to the mood of the user, a system for recommending music based on the personal profile of each user or detecting whether a song is an original or a remix, a live or studio recording.


For more information on the HiT World Innovation Summit and the Global Entrepreneurship Competition, please visit their web site.

 


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