Contest draws wave of entrepreneurs

GRATUITY INCLUDED: Ryan Schumacher, left, and Nick Reuter, are developing TotalTab, a mobile app for smartphones that would allow restaurant patrons to open a tab, monitor and pay it. /
GRATUITY INCLUDED: Ryan Schumacher, left, and Nick Reuter, are developing TotalTab, a mobile app for smartphones that would allow restaurant patrons to open a tab, monitor and pay it. /

Nine entrepreneurs are vying to take home some of the $250,000 worth of top prizes in this year’s Rhode Island Business Plan Competition with proposals that include new ways to provide surgeons with 3-D images, to tote intravenous (IV) devices, to pay a restaurant tab and to tour historic downtown Providence.
All are candidates to become part of the state’s developing knowledge economy.
This year’s competition saw 103 applications in two categories, considerably more than any other year since the contest started in 2000, according to Larry Davidson, principal with the Kahn, Litwin, Renza & Co. accounting firm in Providence, a competition sponsor.
One reason for the increased number of applicants, said Davidson, is that, “This year the competition [organizers] worked really hard at reaching out to our partners, to make people more aware of our competition.”
But another reason, Davidson suggested, is what he sees as early growth of the knowledge economy. Davidson believes the business-startup community, where the most innovation usually happens, is larger now than just a year ago.
Formation of the knowledge economy is an initiative to make Rhode Island and Providence, in particular, the high-tech hub of such sectors as health care and life sciences, technology, research and development, alternate and renewable energy. The R.I. Economic Development Corporation and Greater Providence Chamber of Commerce are leading this effort.
The competition entrants are prime examples of the kinds of industries that could add to the knowledge economy, said Davidson, co-chair of the 2011 contest with David Mitchell, dean of the College of Business at Johnson & Wales University in Providence.
“That is part of our mission, to expand the base of knowledge companies,” he said, adding that the business-plan competition is intended to be a “key piece” of this initiative.
In 2009, 57 applicants took part in the competition and, in 2010, there were 61. The 103 participants this year include 72 entrepreneurs and 31 students, representing 10 states and one foreign nation, Pakistan, according to information provided by Davidson. Some 16 semi-finalists were announced this month, nine entrepreneurs and seven students. The 103 entries submitted cover a range of sectors, including biotech, health care, manufacturing, retail, software and information technology. The three winners will be announced May 3. Winners will be chosen from the entrepreneur track, the student track and for the most significant green component.
They will receive $250,000 worth of prizes, including $50,000 in cash for the top prize winner and in-kind services from local firms such as Kahn, Litwin, Renza & Co., Edwards Angell Palmer & Dodge, Hinckley Allen & Snyder LLP and Rhode Island-based venture capitalists, Davidson said.
Noting that the prizes were “enhanced” this year to $250,000 from $195,000, Davidson said organizers believe the combined in-kind services are actually worth more than $200,000, providing the top winner with an automatic network of valuable contacts.
John Cronin, executive director of the Rhode Island Small Business Development Center at Johnson & Wales University and a judge for the first time in this year’s competition, said the “diversity of ventures” seen in the broad range of applicants nicely “fits the state’s strengths” in such sectors as health care, tourism and technology. Most jobs created by such companies should be “high-skilled,” he said.
Nick Reuter, a resident of Uxbridge, Mass., and his business partner, Ryan Schumacher of Johnston, proposed TotalTab, a mobile application for smartphones that would allow restaurant/tavern patrons to open a tab, monitor and pay it, including tax and tips, all from their phones.
“You wouldn’t have to wait for a waitress to bring you your check and you wouldn’t have to turn over your credit card to a complete stranger,” Reuter explained. “You’d be able to check out on your own terms.”
Jason Harry, a Providence-based entrepreneur for 15 years and a former member of the engineering faculty at Brown University, has formed Lucidux LLC, a company that he said would use “core technology” from an Alabama company to develop next-generation surgical video. The video would provide 3-D images to surgeons for minimally invasive surgical procedures, such as gall bladder removal. “The technology available now is quite good, but it is not able to provide surgeons with the 3-D nature of the surgical field and all of the details, such as the characteristics of tissue surfaces,” Harry told Providence Business News.
Bob Burke, owner and operator of Pot au Feu restaurant in downtown Providence, is working to create a digital guide to the Independence Trail tour he now offers visitors to the city on an occasional basis from his restaurant, stressing Rhode Island’s integral role in the national commitment to freedom of religion and conscience.
Other semi-finalists in the entrepreneur category and their projects are: Ralph Lawrence, of Lawrence Medical Products in Coventry, developed a “move-around IV buggy”; Andy Tolley, of Warren, who aims to manufacture scientific field-monitoring laboratories; John Shubin, of Needham, Mass., to commercialize a personal electronics mobile power source; Meg Wirth of Providence, to build a Web-based global market for tools and ideas to save the lives of mothers and newborns; Stephen Fitch, of North Kingstown, to produce desserts with creative and novel designs; Geoffrey Meek, of Providence, developing software that would allow retailers to automatically link inventory via the Web or mobile devices.
Janet Raymond, senior vice president of the Greater Providence Chamber and a leader in the 2007 formation of a plan to grow the knowledge economy, told PBN that by helping to develop entrepreneurs and by offering awards for green projects, the business-plan contest exactly mirrors the goals of the knowledge economy.
“Entrepreneurs and new company startups are what will help this country, as well as Rhode Island, get out of the recession,” Raymond said. &#8226

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