YES Innovation Summit and Y50K Entrepreneurship Competition Awards Ceremony

On Saturday, April 12th the Yale Entrepreneurial Society (YES) held its second annual Innovation Summit and fourth annual Y50K Entrepreneurship Competition Awards Ceremony. The day consisted of a series of professional panels on social and pure for-profit entrepreneurship -- discussing such topics as technology's implications for media and use of the Internet to promote social causes. The day concluded when professional venture capitalists and industry leaders selected the winners of $100,000 in cash and prizes for best business plan in the categories of for-profit and social entrepreneurship.

SOM played a critical role throughout the day. Professor Sharon Oster made the opening remarks. Seth Goldman '95, President & TeaEO of Honest Tea, gave the keynote speech. Jon Carson '84, Founder of cMarket, represented SOM on a panel about raising venture capital for socially responsible businesses. Marian Chertow '81, Director, Industrial Environmental Management Program at Yale School of FES, moderated a panel on environmental entrepreneurship.

SOM also made a strong showing in the Y50K competition. Current 2nd Year students Jeff Clark, Steve Elia, Peter Fuchs, Jill Gibson and Rob Johnson finished first runner-up in the for-profit category for their business, JetDirect. Current 1st Year students Meagan Gould and Rachel Gregg were second runner up for their for-profit plan, FlyWell. Sarah Kemler, '03, was part of MediaLiquid, which came in second in the social entrepreneurship category, and Charl du Plessis '98, finished third in that category for Semester on Safari.

Many thanks also to the members of the SOM community involved in organizing and judging the competition: Students, Nathan Taft '04, President of YES, Laurie Geronimo '03, Bertina Hou '03, SatKartar Khalsa '04, Ian Kim '03, Matt Reining '04, Vikram Wagh '04 and Alumni, Rob Bettigole '83, Maureen Burke '97; Monty Cerf '83, Alexis Cort '00, Bob Davis '97; Lise Dondy '90, John Fulgoni '85, Jed Kalkstein '98, Lawrence Lee '99, Rebecca Martin '99, Gary Mathias '87, Stewart Murchie '97, Herbert Ochtman '00, Avi Perez '01 and Henry Yaeger '99.