Krannert Freshmen win big at the Burton D. Morgan Competition
Tuesday, March 8, 2016
Krannert alumnus, Mike Cassidy, also a continuing term lecturer at Purdue, coaches an undergraduate team, Fro Yo Express in the 2016 Burton D. Morgan business plan competition. Cassidy said, “The most amazing element of the team story is that five of the six are members of the Entrepreneurship and Innovation Learning Community (ELC) this last fall—thus they are all second semester freshman who came up with this idea and did most of the work as first semester freshman!”
The team members: Marek Davis, Bharat Agarwal, Shriyash Jalukar, Jhalak Rawat, Aarti Panda and the non ELC member and sophomore on the team is Rizwannula Mohammad.
“These are serious students who are serious about entrepreneurship and what impressed me is their commitment to excellence and willingness to put forth the effort required to write a solid plan. These students are each mature beyond their years and are of high character,” Cassidy said.
In the Purdue campus competition, students develop an idea, write a business plan and present the idea to a group of judges. Team Fro Yo Express competed in the undergraduate
division and finished second with a cash prize of $10,000.
Cassidy, who is a lifelong entrepreneur with five successful start-ups said, “one specific area that impressed me is that even though at their age they do not have much business experience, they created an innovative path to market. The students had many other creative ideas owing to their resourcefulness and it is these kinds of things that impressed the judges.”
Rizwanulla, Rawat and Agarwal are studying at the Krannert School of Management. Agarwal shares on Facebook, “months of hard work pay off.”
Purdue student, Daniel Toporek wrote a story for the Exponent about Fro Yo Express and other top placing undergraduate Burton D. Morgan Competition team.
Sources:
Mike Cassidy, Bharat Agarwal and Melissa Evens