InNUvation

Entrepreneur Idol Class Series I

Saturday, October 18th, 2008 5:30pm, ITW Room, Ford Building

“How to build a business model” - Eric Olson from Portage Ventures will guide you through the first steps of building a successful venture.

Entrepreneur Idol Class Series II

Sunday, October 26th 2008, 5:30pm, ITW Room, Ford Building

“Intellectual property - Protect your Idea!” - IP Lawyer Bob Brill from the law firm of Wood Phillips will instruct and guide on the best ways to protect your new venture.

Entrepreneur Idol Class Series III

November 1st, 5:30pm ,ITW room Ford Building

“Finance Workshop” - Bhavan Suri, Manager at William Blair.

Seasoned entrepreneur and finance expert Bhavan Suri will teach you how to build a five year financial projection and other tips to build the financial basis of your strt-up.

Entrepreneur Idol Class Series IV

November 8th, 5:30pm ,ITW room Ford Building

“Sell ice to Eskimos – with a good pitch”  - Michael Marasco, Director of the Center for Entrepreneurship and Innovation. Learn from the pros how to sell your idea and practice your elevator pitch for the Entrepreneur Idol Competition.

November 15th, 2008, 1:00-3:30pm, McCormick Tribune Center

We are proud to host the 2nd Annual Entrepreneur Idol, an idea pitch competition emphasizing fun, vision, and delivery with competing schools across the Midwest.

Schedule

Semi-finals Round 11:00am – 12:30pm

• Teams are given 2.5 minute to pitch for a panel of judges. There will be rooms with teams from all universities competing at all times. The Preliminary Round Judging Panel will be comprised of experienced entrepreneurs, social entrepreneurs, venture capitalists, academics, non-profit founders, legal professionals, and patent experts.

Networking Lunch 12:30 – 1:00pm

• Lunch is served. Sponsors will be introduced. Businesses with info booths can use this time to recruit. Students will use this time to network with the different organizations and distribute resumes. Judges will meet during this time to whittle the competition down to eight teams.

Keynote Speaker 1:00-1:30pm

• Harper Reed and Scott Van Den Plas from Threadless.com/Skinnycorp will be kicking off the event and talk about their experience turning a custom t-shirt design website into a $30 million business and their upcoming adventures with Skinnycorp.

Final Round 1:30 – 4:30pm

• All audience will move into the main auditorium. Eight teams will be competing in front of a panel of four judges: An experienced entrepreneur, an entrepreneurship professor, a venture capitalist, and last year’s Entrepreneur Idol winner. Each team will be allowed 3 minute of presentation, using any visual aid to give its elevator pitch.

Entertainment will be provided at the break time and an audience vote will be conducted at the end of the competition for an Audience Favorite Award. While the judges deliberate for a winner, another presentation will be given by a successfully run student business. Winner and Audience Favorite Awards will be announced promptly afterwards.

The Competition

Entrepreneur Idol posts students with ideas against a panel of judges and audience members who will critique them based on the quality, creativity, and delivery of their concepts.

The competition will be a full day extravaganza filled with passionate competition and lively entertainment.  Elimination Rounds on Saturday will narrow the field for the Finals later that day. Helping competitors and audience through the stress and excitement of competition will be good food, educational speeches by successful entrepreneurs, and informational booths from leading organizations.

Participating Institutions:

Undergraduate students from more than half-a-dozen Chicago-land universities are expected to compete in Entrepreneur Idol.  Students may work as individuals or as teams and will be allowed whatever aids they feel are necessary for their presentations.
Participating institutions:

• University of Chicago
• University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign
• Northwestern University
• Loyola University
• DePaul University
• Illinois Institute of Technology
• University of Wisconsin-Madison
• University of Dayton

The Awards:

• 1st Place - $25,000 funding with the Iventures10 program - Turn your idea into reality!
• 2nd Place - $1500 cash + Free Kaplan Prep Courses (GRE,GMAT,LSAT) for the winning team.
• Audience Favorite Award - $1500 cash prize. You decide who wins!

For more info and registration check www.EntIdol.com

Wednesday, November 11, 2008 at 6:30PM RSVP Required.

Want to learn tips for how to succeed as an entrepreneur?  Want to meet other students and alumni interested in entrepreneurship?

Come hear NU alum Larry Levy discuss: “Becoming Your Own Boss: Entrepreneurship in the Current Economic Climate”

This event is designed to offer advice to aspiring entrepreneurs in today’s day and age.  Mr. Levy will share his own experience of starting and running a highly successful business and then field questions from the audience.  A networking reception will follow.

Event Details:
When: Tuesday, November 11th
6:30-7:30pm:  Discussion hosted by Larry Levy
7:30-8:30pm:  Networking Reception (Includes Limited Bar and Beverages, Appetizers and Dessert)

Registration: Space is limited, Click here to register!

Where: Northwestern University Chicago Campus, Wieboldt Hall, Ray Connelly Lounge
339 E. Chicago Avenue, Chicago, 60611

Take the free bus: http://www.univsvcs.northwestern.edu/shuttles/pdf/intercampus08.pdf.  The map doesn’t show the Chicago campus but the bus route ends at the Montgomery Ward building at 303 E. Chicago Ave. This is just down the street from Wieboldt Hall.

Price: Alumni: $25, Students: $5

Dress code: Business Casual

Sponsored by: NU Club of Chicago and InNuvation

Questions? Contact Matt Znameroski at

About Larry Levy
Larry Levy (UB ‘66, KSM ‘67) is the Chairman of Levy Restaurants and Chairman and CEO of The Levy Organization, his real estate development company.  Since its founding in 1978, Mr. Levy has built Levy Restaurants into a dynamic culinary and hospitality business known nationwide as the innovator and market leader of sports and entertainment dining.   From its base of award-winning restaurants, including Spiaggia and Bistro 110 in Chicago, and Fulton’s Crab House and Portobello Yacht Club at Walt Disney World Resort in Orlando, Florida, the company has grown to 66 locations including convention facilities, music/performance venues, and stadiums and arenas for all major sports leagues in 39 markets worldwide.

About the Levy Institute
In 2003, Larry and his wife Carol founded the Levy Institute of Entrepreneurial Practice at Kellogg Graduate School of Management.  The institute is responsible for shaping and managing the entrepreneurship curriculum at Kellogg.
http://www.kellogg.northwestern.edu/levyinstitute/
http://www.kellogg.northwestern.edu/levyinstitute/program/index.htm
http://www.kellogg.northwestern.edu/levyinstitute/research/levy.htm

October 11th. 5:30pm ,ITW room Ford Building

Find out how you can get involved in InNUvation, learn more about the Entrepreneur Idol Competition, and hear about InNUvation mentorship opportunities and events.

Come hear how your peers started their businesses!

Thursday,May 29th

5 pm to 6:30 pm

Ford Motor Building, ITW (Room 1-350).

There will be free food.

Bios:

Matt Cohlmia is a senior in Industrial Engineering originally from Wichita, Kansas. He has been president of Chicago Unzipped for one year, and in that year turned the business from printing 1,000 copies of the 2nd edition to a planned 5,000 copies of the 3rd.

Li learned about money and finance from his penny-pinching grandmother and was fortunate to be born into a family with many business savvy people. He got his start in entrepreneurship when he joined a small company The Boxing Co., a Northwestern started summer storage and shipping company. As a consultant for Northwestern Student Holdings, Li has helped start two other student companies, NUTutors and Wildcat Express Delivery. He is passionate about real estate and Goldman Sachs.

Neal Sales Griffin has done everything from selling Christmas trees to starting two companies. Griffin’s interest in business began when he sold Christmas trees during junior high school for money. His interest was piqued and he began selling more items. When he graduates, this Learning and Organizational Change major in the School of Education and Social Policy, would like to do the impossible: become a venture capitalist. As a freshman, Griffin also worked with a startup, Context Media, founded by two Northwestern students: Rishi Shah and alumni Derek Moeller.

William Pulte, Jr., a Medill sophomore, has created two new ventures during his time at Northwestern. His first company, Campuslist, co-founded by himself and Jon Drake, is a online marketplace for college students. The second company that he is currently running is Great Lake Helicopters, a service that specializes in aerial photography in the North Shore area.

Come meet Chicago-area Alumni with entrepreneurial experience. Hear about experiences after graduation and maybe find new opportunities!

Tuesday, May 20

5:30-7:30pm

Prairie Moon, Back Room (1502 Sherman Ave, Evanston, IL 60201)

Appetizers will be provided

Sunday, May 11, 2007 from 1PM to 5PM
McCormick Tribune Center (1870 Campus Dr., Evanston, IL 60208)
Northwestern University

Come watch the exciting business plans by our 6 finalists!

Biotic Laboratories

Element Bars

Februus

Opthometrics

Passaggio

The Next Big Sound

1.10PM – 1.30PM: Sign In (Participants, judges and audience arrives)
1.30PM – 2.30PM: Presentation I (First three finalists present: 10 min presentation + 7 min questions from judges)
2.30PM – 2.45PM: Break
2.45PM – 3.45PM: Presentation II (Second set of three finalists present: 10 min presentation + 7 min questions from judges)
4.00PM – 4.30PM: Keynote Speaker - Gordon Segal (Crate & Barrel, Founder and CEO)
4.30PM – 5.00PM: Awards Ceremony (Announcement of winners followed by networking reception)

InNUvation’s’ field trip to Chicago’s leading online brokerage company.

The only broker ranked in the top two places in Barron’s Annual Broker Comparison for the past three years - 2006, 2007, 2008

Come with us to the company’s headquarters and Q & A with the company founders.

Vans leave in front of the Technological Institute

April 30^th, 2:45pm

Limited spaces available!

Registration is closed. Thank you for your interest!

Don’t have a job yet?

Want to meet new and upcoming Chicago companies?

Come to InNUvations’s informal recruiting event and meet top Chicago firms on the rise. Some participating companies are Natropolis Inc., Zaplee.com, Greenamericaproject.com, ParkWhiz LLC, and more..

Free Dinner!

Informal dress code

Bring your resumes…

Event is on May 1^st, 4:30-6:30pm in the Cohen Commons, 4^th floor of the Technological Institute (follow the signs from the main entrance).

This event is open to public

Professor Jim Septa (Northwestern Law)
Jacobs 101
Wednesday April 9th from 5:15-6:15

This is the fourth and final NUVC workshop. Some topics that will be covered are:
* Differences between patents, trademarks, and trade secrets and when to consider using each
* What the process is for filing a patent
* How to pick a good attorney and also when is it necessary to pick a specialist versus a generalist
* How to protect the ability to patent an idea by maintaining confidentiality of the idea
* What are some of the common mistakes entrepreneurs make regarding IP

Founder and Managing Director of Illinois Innovation Accelerator Fund a $10M seed stage VC fund
Jacobs 160
Monday April 7th from 5:15-6:15

Come listen to Kellogg alumnus, David Weinstein ‘00, talk about his journey to helping found and serve as the managing director for the Illinois Innovation Accelerator Fund, a $10MM seed stage venture capital fund in Chicago.  David will talk about some of the lessons he learned along the way and also offer advice to aspiring entrepreneurs and students trying to maximize their school experience.  David will also discuss the importance of having sales experience and a strong network, and how they proved invaluable in his career.

Northwestern’s university-wide entrepreneurship competition presents…

Entrepreneurship Social
When: Tuesday, February 26, 6pm-8pm
Location: Cohen Commons (L482), Tech Institute
Looking to be part of a winning business plan? Searching for people to help launch your business plan? Meet other students interested in entrepreneurship at this event!

Speaker Series: Daphne Mazarakis (Founder of Tula Foods)
When: Thursday, February 28, 5:15pm-6:15pm
Location: Jacobs 165 (Kellogg)
Hear Daphne’s story about starting a food company. She will talk about her decision to become an entrepreneur and her recent experiences with fundraising.

Selling Skills Workshop
When: Saturday, March 1, 10am-12pm
Location: Jacobs 101 (Kellogg)
Learn how to pitch your business idea to gain investors and customers.

Come meet, hear, and chat with Steve Olechowski, an NU alum whose company, Feedburner, was recently acquired by Google. Learn about how his struggles, how he did, and how you can do it, too!

This event is to promote the new Principles of Entrepreneurship Class being offered this Spring in a joint effort between the Business Institutions Program and the Industrial Engineering and Management Sciences Department (IEMS395 & BIP390). This class will cover the main principles and basics of entrepreneurship and of starting a business.

This event is being co-sponsored by BIP, IEMS, InNUvation, and ISBE (the Institute for Student Business Education).

This even is open to both undergraduates and graduate students alike.

Food will be available.

When: Wednesday, February 20, 2008, 4:00pm - 5:30pm
Where: Ford Building, ITW Auditorium (1-350)

Northwestern’s university-wide entrepreneurship competition presents…

Team Building Event

LOOKING to be part of a winning business idea?
SEARCHING for people to join your team?

When: Wednesday, January 30, 7:30-9:30PM
Where: Prairie Moon, 1502 Sherman Ave, Evanston, IL

Light appetizers provided.

We’ll have booths set up by interest to help you find the ideal group:
Hi-tech, Retail, Clean Energy, Biotech, & Social Entrepreneurship

http://nuvc.innuvation.org

Northwestern’s university-wide entrepreneurship competition presents…

Finance Workshop

Taught By
Bhavan Suri

Learn how to build sound financials for your business plan.

Bhavan is an exciting and experienced entrepreneur, having co-founded Elytics, an enterprise software company and worked with Answerthink and OCA Ventures. He also is on the Board of Advisors of Next Step Technologies, CoboTech Inc, the Aspire Group, Liquid Pixels, and the One Acre Fund. Bhavan is a graduate of Kellogg and Brown University, and currently is an Associate Analyst at William Blair.

When: Saturday, Februrary 2, 10am-12pm
Where: Jacobs Center (Kellogg), Room 101

Free lunch provided.

http://nuvc.innuvation.org

Northwestern’s university-wide entrepreneurship competition presents…

Marketing Workshop
Taught By
Prof. Alexander Chernev

What role will marketing play in taking an innovative idea to market?

Gain hands-on experience marketing your idea!
All students welcome. No registration necessary.

When: Saturday, January 19, 10am-12pm
Where: Jacobs Center (Kellogg), Room 1246

Free lunch provided.

http://nuvc.innuvation.org

Looking for your eureka moment to start your own company? Ever wonder why you get your best ideas in the shower? Come hear Kellogg’s Professor Andrew Razeghi speak about his latest book, The Riddle, which reveals the precursors that stimulate creative insight. Razeghi combines the latest findings in neuroscience, interviews with current innovators, and studies of history’s most creative minds to provide a practical framework for creating conditions to make successful innovation a repeatable process.

Learn from the best:
When: Monday, January 14th, 5:15PM - 6:15PM
Where: Kellogg, Room 1246

The Northwestern and University of Chicago Undergrad Entrepreneur Idol Competition:

Four Teams from Northwestern. Four Teams from University of Chicago.

Entrepreneur Idol is an idea pitch competition which emphasizes creativity, vision, and delivery. On December 2nd, four teams from each university will present their ideas for new businesses/social causes to a panel of three judges and an audience of entrepreneurs, venture capitalists, and hopefully you!

Not to mention, in Entrepreneur Idol, the audience has a vote on the team that wins the $1000 top prize!

Come support your friends and learn about entrepreneurship, new business ideas, and social change.

When: Sunday, December 2nd, 12:30pm
Where: McCormick Tribune Center (south of Norris and east of Kresge)

LUNCH PROVIDED

Sponsored by the Center for Entrepreneurship and Innovation

Please visit www.nuchicagoidol.com for information.

LOOKING to be part of a winning business plan?
SEARCHING for people to help launch your business plan?

This first team building session will provide an opportunity for those interested in the NUVC to start brainstorming ideas and meeting people to form teams. There will be a session for people to briefly pitch their ideas. Those with or without ideas are welcome to attend. Food will be provided.

For those looking to pitch an idea at the social we encourage you to register to present your idea by filling out the form here: http://kellogg.qualtrics.com/SE?SID=SV_202wjVCWSOlzaEA&SVID=Prod

When:
Tuesday, Dec. 4th, 6-9 pm

Where:
Tech Institute 4th Floor Faculty Lounge

Food provided

Come mix and mingle with other entrepreneurially minded students on the downtown campus. Appetizers will be provided.

When: Thursday, November 29, 2007, 6:30 - 8:30 PM
Where: Elephant & Castle, 160 E Huron, Chicago, IL

Applied Research Day (ARD) is a university-wide research poster forum showcasing some of the world class research being performed at Northwestern. One of the primary goals of ARD is to enhance collaboration and exchange of ideas across the different departments and schools at Northwestern. Cash prizes will be awarded for outstanding poster presentations.

When:
Tuesday, Novemeber, 13, 2007

Where:
Technological Institute on Northwestern’s Evanston Campus

For more information and to register please visit: http://ard.innuvation.org/

Abstracts are due by October 31, 2007

Is your idea going to make millions?

Learn from the pros how to pitch to investors that you are the next big thing.

Having great ideas is only half the battle, while selling them is the secret to true success.

Come to our workshop and learn how to present your idea professionally, succinctly, and convince everyone that you are the real deal.

Open to everyone, including NU Venture Challenge and Entrepreneur Idol participants. Free Pizza!

Have any questions? Please email Elan at

When: Thursday, November 15th, 5:15pm-7:15pm
Where: LR2, Technological Institute

Genevieve Thiers, Founder of Sittercity.com & Graduate of NU School of Music

Hear the story of how a professional opera singer created one of the hottest web companies. Named by TIME magazine as one of the “50 Coolest Websites,” Sittercity is the leading parent-sitter matchmaking site for child care and pet care.

When: Monday, November 5, 5:15 – 6:15pm
Where: Jacobs 160

Open forum on entrepreneurship with:
Paul Sagan (CEO of Akamai) & Mary Lou Song (3rd employee of eBay and Director of Community Development)

Hear about what it takes to create and lead a successful firm and learn about Northwestern’s largest entrepreneurship competition.

When: Monday, October 8th , 4:30PM - 5:45PM
Where: Tech Institute, L211

2008 NUVC Kickoff Powerpoint

InNUvation
2007 Summer Seminar Series:
Product Development

What is Product Development? As an entrepreneur, how should I handle it?

Come learn about Product Development from the experts in this 3 part series!

Our guests come from Herbst LaZar Bell (HLB), one of the nation’s leading product design and development firms, and Loggerhead Tools, the creators of the bionic wrench. Whether you’re just curious or you have specific questions related to your own idea, this series is for you!

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