[ibimage==24490==Original==none==self==ibimage_align-center]The annual Entrepreneur@NU conference hosted over 300 students, alumni and community members at Northwestern University’s campus Wednesday. Throughout the daylong event themed ‘Pivot to Success,’ there were six panels, two keynote speakers and three clinics, all topped off with the NU Venture Challenge pitches (and cash prizes!).
This year, Northwestern welcomed back alums Gary Kremen of Match.com and Nikhil Sethi of Adaptly as keynotes and over 20 panelists, many of whom are also alums. About 150 students attended the conference to hear the panels and participate in workshops such as the legal advice clinic and the career management clinic, a popular new offering this year.
“This year is the first year we offered the Career Management clinic; all available time slots were full so it was a good addition,” Megan Everett, assistant director of the Farley Center for Entrepreneurship and Innovation, said. “The idea is that some students may not have their own startup but want to work at a startup and need advice or some students want to know how to translate their startup experience to appeal to larger companies.”
Entrepreneur@NU ended on a high note with the announcement of NUVC winners: four out of six finalists were awarded cash prizes after 45 minutes of deliberation by the judges. The grand prize went to JiveHealth, a smartphone game for children encouraging healthier eating.
Two of the teams awarded, Chisel and LicenseBuddy, are currently part of NUvention Web, an interdisciplinary digital entrepreneurship course. Notetaking app Chisel placed third in a tie, which caused a judge to donate an extra $1000 so each third place team could take home $2,500!
LicenseBuddy, a platform for managing professional licenses, received the second prize, which is coming at a perfect time for the team, Jeremy OBriant of LicenseBuddy said.
“We have been bootstrapping the business over the last several months and these resources position us well to raise a seed round later this summer,” OBriant, a Kellogg School of Management student, said.
Westin Hatch of Chisel said the third place finish was a welcomed validation after demoing the app in a booth for a few hours earlier in the day. The Chisel team had prepared for “voraciously” for the 10-minute pitch competition and the 10 minutes of questions from judges.
“Our pitch was technically challenging as we were the only group to demo an actual product which required switching between devices and then using technology we just built,” Hatch, a Kellogg student, said. “Any glitch in our app or in the transfer between devices could have been game-over for our team. Fortunately, it went off without a hitch and we feel like our pitch was a personal best.”
After the NUVC pitches (and the much-needed cookie break while judges deliberated the winners), the ‘Pivot to Success’ conference ended, but the conference’s buzz on social media didn’t: Although Everett said integrating a substantial social media presence into the conference was new this year, the Tumblr posts and the Tweets continued. To get caught up on the day’s memorable quotes and photos track #NUpivot2013.
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