Entrepreneurs Develop Businesses at Summer Venture Program of Babson College

WELLESLEY, Mass., June 17, 2011 /PRNewswire-USNewswire/ -- 10 Babson College students and recent graduate teams are spending 10 intensive weeks in Babson's Summer Venture Program to advance their businesses.

This initiative of The Arthur M. Blank Center for Entrepreneurship at Babson College offers an environment that supports the startups. Visit http://www3.babson.edu/ESHIP/outreach-events/summer-venture.cfm

* Open work space allows teams to network, assist one another, and share resources.

* Many teams live in Babson dorms so they can work around-the-clock to refine their ventures.

* Teams receive in-house counsel from the program director and meet with entrepreneur-mentors at least once a week.

* Noon on Mondays is status update time when teams share ideas and solve the week's business challenge.

* Brown-bag lunch Tuesdays and Thursdays feature professors/business guest speakers.

* "Hot Seat" Wednesdays allow a single team to deliver a business presentation and receive intensive feedback.

Demo Day - July 28th at 2:00 p.m.

Babson entrepreneurs present their business plans to venture capitalists, angel investors, friends, and family on July 28th at 2:00 p.m.

Director/Mentors

Steve Gold is the SVP Director and summer mentors are Mary Gale, Kevin Mulcahy and Jeff Schiebe.

Student/Alumni Businesses

Down to Earth Waste Solutions LLC (Nik Beisert '11) - Down to Earth Waste Solutions offers low-cost, sustainable waste management services to small food businesses. http://www.d2ewaste.com/

Footsteps (Richard Agnew M'11) - Footsteps is a unique software system that captures and realizes the value of in-classroom information for leading child care and early education centers that wish to maximize enrollment, customer retention and marketplace differentiation by connecting with parents in a collaborative and structured way.

Gloat It (Milind Doshi '11 & Poonam Doshi '14) - Gloat It is a user generated online marketplace for micro services that people can buy and sell for $5. Everyone can offer a service that is valuable to someone else. Our mission is to help people from all around the world showcase and monetize their talents, skills and creativity. http://www.gloatit.com/

Golden Health Guide (Laura Mitchell M'11 & Seth Burstein M'11) - Golden Health Guide is a website helping seniors and their families make more informed purchasing decisions by providing reviews of home medical products. http://www.goldenhealthguide.com/

JumpShift (Carl Sanders-Edwards M'12) - JumpShift aims to improve the productivity of organizations. It does this by helping improve 'how' people work, irrespective of 'what' they do. We achieve this with two programs; Leadership Development and Personal Productivity. The JumpShift programs take a revolutionary approach to training and development that builds on what participants are already good at, and provides inspiration from best-practice models. Participants come to their own decisions about what they should do, and are supported through the implementation with tools, an online environment and 'check/adjust' processes to ensure a 'JumpShift' in productivity. http://jumpshift.co.nz/

KokoBerna (Belinda Ephraim M'11) - Inspired by the revival of ancient beauty treatments and a 400-year old family-owned formula, KokoBerna develops and markets a proprietary range of holistic facial care products using centuries-old flora medicines and bio-healing restoratives that target the unique skin care needs of the diverse, luxury female market. http://www.kokoberna.com/

NAS Medical (Jeff D'Agostino M'11) - NAS Medical is developing a flexible bioactive material to fix bone in load bearing applications. We have several pending patents on the proprietary platform. The markets for the material are total joint replacements, femoroplasty, vertebroplasty, and filling bone voids.

RooferQuotes (Johan de Borst M'12, Kevin Kauzlaric M'12 & Matt Pecci M'12) - RooferQuotes matches quality Roofers with Homeowners by providing a platform for quotes. http://www.rooferquotes.com/

SpecialNeedsSitter.com, Inc. (Zachary Kysar M'12 & Alex Chang M'12) - SpecialNeedsSitter.com enables families who have members diagnosed with special needs to effectively find qualified sitters and supports in their communities. http://www.specialneedssitter.com/

YouMeeTv (Gaurav M'11 & Luke Cooper M'11) - YouMeeTv is the first online video platform where you can get personalized feedback from real experts and share it with the world. http://www.youmeetv.com/

Babson College is the educator, convener, and thought leader for Entrepreneurship of All Kinds™. The College is a dynamic living and learning laboratory, where students, faculty, and staff work together to address the real-world problems of business and society--while at the same time evolving our methods and advancing our programs. We shape the leaders our world needs most: those with strong functional knowledge and the skills and vision to navigate change, accommodate ambiguity, surmount complexity, and motivate teams in a common purpose to create economic and social value. As we have for nearly a half-century, Babson continues to advance Entrepreneurial Thought and Action™ as the most positive force on the planet for generating sustainable economic and social value.

Babson College in Wellesley, Mass., is recognized internationally as a leader in entrepreneurial management education. Babson grants BS degrees through its innovative undergraduate program, and grants MBA and custom MS and MBA degrees through the F.W. Olin Graduate School of Business at Babson College. Babson Executive Education offers executive development programs to experienced managers worldwide. For information, visit www.babson.edu.

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SOURCE Babson College