Wednesday, March 1, 2006

Joint IMSC/Marshall Team Qualifies for the Largest Business Plan Competition in the U.S.

A group of students from USC's Viterbi School of Engineering and the Marshall School of Business will be competing in the Rice University Business Plan Competition from March 30th to April 1st. This three-day competition is the largest of its kind and is intended to simulate the real-world process of young entrepreneurs soliciting start-up funds from early-stage investors and venture capital firms. Over 120 schools submitted business plans worldwide and only 36 were selected to compete at Rice University in Houston, Texas. Other qualifying business schools from elite universities such as Harvard, MIT, Stanford, and University of Pennsylvania will be competing with USC for over $200,000 in prizes.

Daniel Owen, Jackson Hsieh, Roger Zimmermann, Leslie Liu and Kamalesh Jha (from left to right).

The USC team is composed of Ph.D. candidate Leslie Liu from Viterbi School of Engineering's Computer Science Department and Integrated Media Systems Center (IMSC), four Marshall MBA students -- Daniel Owen, Jackson Hsieh, Joseph Lin, and Kamalesh Jha -- as well as Tina Hsieh from UCLA's Anderson School of Management. Leslie Liu has been pursuing his studies in computer science with IMSC for the past four years, focusing in his research on multimedia streaming architectures. He met the other teammates at a Marshall Graduate Technology Alliance 2005 event when he gave a presentation on IMSC's streaming technology. The team's business plan evolves around a dynamic peer-to-peer Internet streaming solution that will give consumers the freedom to control their music and media from anywhere they go. The core technology was developed under the guidance of Leslie Liu's advisor, Roger Zimmermann, one of IMSC's key investigators and research assistant professor with the Computer Science Department.

Teams attending the competition have the opportunity to meet and network with over 100 venture capital principals, early stage investors, successful entrepreneurs and senior business leaders who will serve as judges for the event. The judges make decisions on which business venture they would most likely fund based on both the technology's strength and business potential. The USC team is looking forward to this networking opportunity and is primed to land a top spot in the competition.

Maintained by Roger Zimmermann
Last updated: Wednesday March 1, 2006.
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