Business Plan winners of Cancer Challenge were announced March 5 at the National Cancer Institute (NCI)’s Rockville Campus. The Avon Foundation, the Center for Advancing Innovation (CAI), and the National Institute of Health’s NCI created the first business plan and start-up challenge to transfer technology from their institutions. Stephen Auvil, TEDCO’s senior vice president of technology transfer and commercialization, was on hand to congratulate the ten winners. One winning team included entrepreneur Dr. Irene Gonzalez from TEDCO’s Maryland Entrepreneurs Resource List (MERL).
University students were given the opportunity to start companies around ten topics from Human Health Sciences and Avon Foundation Portfolios. Each team was required to include a seasoned entrepreneur with start-up experience. More than 40 teams were accepted into the challenge.
When Rosemarie Truman, founder and CEO of CAI, asked TEDCO for an entrepreneur to mentor a team, MERL member Dr. Irene Gonzalez stepped up to guide one of the winning teams. Her team leader was Gerardo Ramirez, a student from Universityof California, Berkeley. Winning teams now must work on business plans and develop an application for a next round of funding of at least $100,000.