Fall 2012 Business Concept Competition

Andrew Gazdecki is killing it. His company BiznessApps, with its latest spin-off BiznessCRM, is rapidly becoming one of the most popular, if not the most popular, website for creating apps in the world – and it all started at the bi-annual Chico State Business Concept Competition. Andrew won in Fall 2010. 

This Fall’s event was held on November 14 and it was, according to a number of students in the crowd, “epic”. There were over 125 people in attendance at Colusa Hall. They were there to hear fourteen finalists present their ideas in front of a panel of four distinguished judges.

The winner was Katharina Chiu, whose idea Meeting Punkt was inspired by her trip to Germany last year and her perception that students (and really everyone) could use an app to find traveling companions.

Katharina accepting congratulations.

A happy winner!

Second place was Impetus Calendar Management for an app to sync various different calendar programs. Brett Connor and Kevin Crowe were the presenters.

Kevin Crowe

High five for Brett

The judges awarded two third place finishers:

Eco Racks team

•  Eco Racks, the brainchild of Sam Thomas, Nico Chesterton, and Andrew Paddock. Their idea revolved around an in-classroom stand for skateboards.

Max Fredericks

• MusicSession, Max Fredericks’ idea for a web site that unites musicians and music lovers in a unique social networking milieu.

Judges for the event were Professor Bonnie Persons of the College of Business; Professor Daren Otten of the College of Engineering and head of the Sustainable Manufacturing; local entrepreneur,  member of the Center for Entrepreneurship’s Board of Mentors and a proud Chico State alum, Dave Purser; and Joyce Mikkelson of the California Center for International Trade Development.

Judges: from the left,  Bonnie, Dave, Daren and Joyce

Yours truly.

Easy job...