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Babson Undergraduate Students Named Finalists in E-Fest Business Competition

EIXUndergraduate students James Cheng ‘20, Thomas Lehman ’20 are among the 25 finalists chosen for e-Fest 2017, a competition that will award more than $200,000 in grants and scholarships for the best undergraduate business ideas, April 6-8 in Minneapolis. Cheng is a member of the Butler Venture Accelerator at Babson.

Their business Vowel, Inc. was chosen from a pool of more than 160 teams from 81 schools who submitted seven-minute videos and 12 slides describing their business ideas. A panel of 32 judges selected the finalists, who will receive travel stipends and hotel accommodations for the final round.

The largest undergraduates-only business plan competition (as measured by the size of the cash awards), e-Fest is co-sponsored by the Schulze School of Entrepreneurship, Opus College of Business at the University of St. Thomas in Minneapolis and EIX.org, an online learning platform for entrepreneurs, students and professors. Featured speakers April 6-8 will include Best Buy Co. founder Richard M. Schulze and “Shark Tank” TV show regular Daymond John, founder of FUBU, the urban clothing company that grew into a $6 billion brand.

Students with the three best business ideas will receive $100,000, $50,000 and $25,000 in prizes. An additional $10,000, $5,000 and $2,500 in grants will go to their universities to support entrepreneurship education. A Friday night Innovation Challenge will award $20,000, $10,000 and $5,000 in scholarships to the top three student teams that develop the best solution to a business challenge posed that evening.

More information about the competition, including rules and rubrics for judging, can be found here. The competition will take place at the Schulze School, located at 1000 LaSalle Avenue in Minneapolis.