Two UW-Madison graduate students took first place in an International Business Plan Competition March 2 at the University of Nebraska-Lincoln.
Chad Sorenson and Juame Villanueva took home $10,000 and the opportunity to compete in the Moot Corp, a larger competition in Austin, Texas.
“This will be the best of the best,” Sorenson said. “There will be plans from all over the world. It’s very competitive, but I think we have a good chance in it.”
Their plan is centered around Sorenson’s invention, the TankMate, an electronic fluid-monitoring system for farmers, which monitors fertilizer usage. Sorenson expects the product to be marketed within a year.
Sorenson holds undergraduate and graduate mechanical engineering degrees from UW and has been working on the TankMate since 1999. Villanueva holds an MS in economics from the University of Gothenburg, Sweden, and has worked in international marketing for several multinational corporations. Both students will graduate from UW’s MBA program in May. They are part of the Weinert Applied Ventures in Entrepreneurship Program, a yearlong program that prepares students to start, grow and advise entrepreneurial businesses. Students in the WAVE program work closely with area businesses and UW startups to create and implement strategic, operating and financial plans.
Brian Pope and Jay Ebben, who helped advise the team, are veterans of business competitions. The prize money will be split among the team.
This is the second WAVE team to take first place in a major entrepreneurship competition this year. A team of five UW students won first place in regionals at the Venture Capital Investment Competition in Austin, Texas, Feb. 23.
“The success of our students in these competitions is consistent and well deserved,” Ted Baker, co-director of the WAVE program, said. “It comes from their ability to apply the wide variety of business skills taught in the program and enables them to leverage their diverse backgrounds and experiences to develop effective business strategies.”
This is the fourth competition Sorenson has won with the TankMate.
