Issue date: 5/14/07 Section: Campus

By Paul Takahashi
The Daily Northwestern

It all started out with a personal challenge.

"I wanted to do something besides school," said Matt Cynamon, a participant at Saturday's entrepreneurship competition. "So, I got the idea to walk the Great Wall of China."

The SESP sophomore's goal spawned the business idea BeExtraordinary, a "Facebook-like" social networking Web site with a philanthropic focus.

Despite competing against graduate students from the Kellogg School of Management and the McCormick School of Engineering and Applied Science, Cynamon's undergraduate team received $7,000 for their idea at the final round of the NU Venture Challenge.

The team, which also includes Communication junior Devin Balkind, SESP sophomore Jackson Froliklong, and Weinberg sophomore Micah Friedland, won third place overall and an award for the best social idea. The team also won best undergraduate team at the semifinals held April 21.

"To have undergrads compete as well as they did against Kellogg grad students is a testament to the quality of the students and their ideas," said Kellogg graduate student David Silverman, one of the organizers of the event. "We were glad to be able to provide an outlet for such ideas to get public exposure."

NU Venture Challenge, organized by InNUvation, is the first universitywide entrepreneurship competition, said InNUvation co-president Andrew Chen. Competitors pitched ideas to a panel of six judges with expertise in entrepreneurship, vying for prizes totaling $27,500.

After a 15-minute presentation of their idea, finalists answered questions posed by the judges during a 15-minute question-and-answer session.

Of the 60 teams competing in the challenge, six made it to the final round.

BeExtraordinary was the only undergraduate finalist. Armed with a stack of note cards and a PowerPoint presentation, they pitched their idea for a social networking site that would connect student philanthropists with potential donors, as well as a marketing strategy that would help them realize it.

Continued...

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