{"id":59353,"date":"2012-04-27T15:11:59","date_gmt":"2012-04-27T19:11:59","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/today.uconn.edu\/?p=59353"},"modified":"2012-04-30T08:41:44","modified_gmt":"2012-04-30T12:41:44","slug":"a-big-boost-for-budding-entrepreneurs","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/today.uconn.edu\/2012\/04\/a-big-boost-for-budding-entrepreneurs\/","title":{"rendered":"A Big Boost for Budding Entrepreneurs"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"Innovation<\/a><\/p>\n

Jolina Li won\u2019t need to look for a job when she graduates this year with her bachelor\u2019s degree in finance. The 23-year-old entrepreneur and UConn senior has already created one for herself as the founder of YumZing.com, an online startup business. And now, she\u2019s among several students receiving a major boost through a new UConn competition to foster exactly that kind of ambition and innovation.<\/p>\n

Li\u2019s team and three others were named the inaugural winners of Innovation Quest<\/a> (IQ), which launched this year at UConn as an expansion of a competition that started almost a decade ago at California Polytechnic State University.<\/p>\n

The UConn winners\u2019 projects rose to the top of 41 applications after an intensive process in which they had to pitch their ideas in detail to a judging panel of accomplished alumni and other experts, many of them entrepreneurs themselves.<\/p>\n

Unlike some other competitions, Innovation Quest\u2019s benefits go far beyond the $30,000 being split among the four top teams.<\/p>\n

Those teams and four other runners-up will also participate this spring in \u201cInQbator,\u201d an intensive six-week accelerator program in which UConn alumni mentors and other experts will guide them in everything from licensing trademarks to drawing up contracts, planning their finances, and working out other logistics.<\/p>\n

Seizing an opportunity<\/strong><\/p>\n

Innovation Quest expanded to UConn at the suggestion of Keith R. Fox \u201980 (BUS), a longtime business entrepreneur, executive, and philanthropist who offered to sponsor this year\u2019s contest after seeing its success at Cal Poly.<\/p>\n

Other UConn alumni quickly embraced it, he said, and have offered their time and expertise to help the budding entrepreneurs, who can then use the guidance to push their startups from prototypes to companies. Then, they\u2019ll be in a position to present to potential investors.<\/p>\n

Li, team leader of the first-place YumZing.com<\/a> group, has been busy building the website into a service in which people can spread the word about favorite dishes at various restaurants, and those restaurants can highlight their specialties to a wide online audience. She expects to launch it this summer, once they\u2019ve worked out a complementary mobile application.<\/p>\n

As the top winner, Li\u2019s team gets $15,000 to help bring YumZing.com from concept to reality. She was one of the first applicants when the contest was announced earlier this year.<\/p>\n

\u201cWhen I see an opportunity, I have to go for it,\u201d says Li, whose Twitter profile proclaims, \u201cEntrepreneurship is my passion.\u201d<\/p>\n

She says it\u2019s a mindset that her entire family embraces, and which she learned by watching her parents launch and operate a restaurant in her hometown of New Britain. Being afraid to fail has never stopped her; she says she considers any setbacks to be valuable learning experiences for the next venture.<\/p>\n

\u201cI want to build something that people can benefit from. I know it\u2019s hard work to start your own businesses, but it\u2019s also very rewarding,\u201d Li says.<\/p>\n

In addition to Li and her team, other winners of this year\u2019s Innovation Quest contest are building a bioscience database; running a specialized search engine; and creating an online shopping portal where consumers can combine purchasing with charitable giving.<\/p>\n

Fox says more than 20 different academic disciplines were represented among the applications, ranging from business and engineering students to others in the liberal arts, medical and pharmaceutical fields, and the humanities.<\/p>\n

\u201cThe applications were all very unique and very creative,\u201d Fox says, \u201cand they really underscored the fact that ideas and innovation can come anytime, anywhere, and from anyone.\u201d<\/p>\n

Friendly rivalry<\/strong><\/p>\n

The competition is one of many programs at UConn to support and encourage entrepreneurship, both as a way to help students and faculty enrich their experiences, and to boost Connecticut\u2019s job market and place it at the forefront of innovation.<\/p>\n

Innovation Quest had the enthusiastic blessing of UConn President Susan Herbst, who stopped in to observe during the students\u2019 panel presentations to the judges earlier this month.<\/p>\n

She\u2019s also engaged in a friendly wager with Cal Poly President Jeffrey Armstrong over which university will have the highest number of this year\u2019s startups running as companies by the time next year\u2019s Innovation Quest winners are selected.<\/p>\n

\u201cI\u2019m still pinching myself that the contest was able to generate the sort of incredible applications we received, especially for its first time and on somewhat short notice. It\u2019s a joy beyond anything I can describe in words to see how they rose to the challenge,\u201d says Eric Knight<\/a> \u201982 (CLAS), the local coordinator and one of the judges, and manager of the Springboard Program at UConn\u2019s Office of Technology Commercialization<\/a> in its Office of Economic Development.<\/p>\n

Knight, who also holds the title of UConn Entrepreneur-in-Residence, has launched many of his own business ventures over the years, and felt that same thrill of discovery when the student applicants explained their ideas and what they would do with the Innovation Quest winnings.<\/p>\n

\u201cThe competition portion is really just phase one,\u201d Knight says. \u201cThe value they\u2019re really going to get will be the intensive mentoring they\u2019re about to receive. They\u2019re all innovative and ambitious, and what this program does is give them the freedom and resources to really go for it.\u201d<\/p>\n

A passion for entrepreneurship<\/strong><\/p>\n

He says Li is exactly the kind of young entrepreneur they had in mind, and that her creativity and passion for entrepreneurship was evident in her presentation.<\/p>\n

She isn\u2019t new to entrepreneurship. She also launched Oh Capture This<\/a>, a business she runs primarily on weekends to provide rental photo booths at weddings, birthday parties, and other gatherings, where guests get photo stickers as souvenirs.<\/p>\n

In addition to the YumZing.com team and its $15,000 award, the other winners honored at the program\u2019s April 24 awards dinner were:<\/p>\n