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Be Your Own Boss Bowl 2008
Temple's Be Your Own Boss Bowl Awards Grand Prize to Brian Linton, College of Liberal Arts
On Wednesday, April 2, the finalists in the 2008 Be Your Own Boss Bowl, Temple's 10th annual business plan competition, presented their business plans to a distinguished panel of judges at the Student Activities Center. Winners were announced later in the evening following a keynote address by Ray Land, a Temple alum and Senior Vice President and Chief Financial Officer for Safeguard Scientifics.
Brian Linton, a senior majoring in Asian Studies from the College of Liberal Arts won the overall grand prize. His business, Legal Organics, is a proposed chain of organic coffee houses which also sells organic produce and organic flowers. The business uses novel equipment to roast organic coffee in house for the ultimate in freshness while also reducing costs compared with traditional coffee house chains. Linton was awarded $10,000 in cash, $7,000 in Microsoft products and over $13,000 in professional services from law firm Morgan Lewis, accounting firm Asher & Company, and marketing and branding firm CattLelogos. Linton is currently running two other businesses: Kofi Coffee, bagged coffee with guaranteed freshness, and Sandshack, a wholesale jewelry and apparel company.
First place in the undergraduate category went to Jenna Strausser, a senior majoring in entrepreneurship for the Riverview Inn, a bed and breakfast hotel to be located in renovated historic buildings on a golf course in Easton, PA. Melanie Tambolas, a third year law student from the Beasely College of Law, won first prize in the graduate/alumni/faculty/staff category for the After-Schoolhouse, a non-profit organization. After-Schoolhouse establishes academically rigorous and comprehensive after-school programs to prepare low-income students from underserved public schools for success in college. First place winners were awarded cash and prizes worth over $7,000.
Second place, undergraduate division, went to John Kosempel, Dennis Samuel, Kyle McDaniel and Jusin Thomas from the College of Engineering for Powltik Technologies, which uses technology to replace card punching for in-train ticket purchases on SEPTA and other rail systems. Second place in the graduate/alumni/faculty/staff division went to Andrew Hopkins, a second year full-time MBA student from the Fox School of Business and Manish Naik, a graduate of LSU, for EncoreCareers, a sophisticated online career management system and networking site for the "unretired." Second place winners received cash and prizes totaling over $4,500.
Presenting finalists also included:
- Owen Williams, Bradley Frank and Sharaf Atakhanov, Fox School of Business and Aleth Star Bocasan, School of Communications and Theater: New Fortune Media (graduate division)
- Jason Smikle, Fox School of Business and Ebele Mora, U. of Pennsylvania: Truly Unique Vision (graduate division)
- Yasmine Mustafa, Fox School of Business: SwapYourCloset.com (graduate division)
- Ailar Javadi and William Bock, College of Engineering: BrakeChamps (undergraduate division)
- Mea Parks, Fox School of Business: Kevin's Angel (undergraduate division)
The Innovation and Entrepreneurship Institute congrats all students who entered the competition and wishes them the best of success in their entrepreneurial businesses.