Three seniors win top prize in Business Plan Contest for MindSpeak program

A trio of seniors won the $5,000 first prize at this year's Business Plan Contest with their young software company, MindSpeak LLC.

The University held the fourth annual contest in the Friend Center. During the contest, undergraduates present entrepreneurial ideas to a panel of 12 business professionals.

A total of $10,000 in prize money was awarded this year.

MindSpeak produces software that enables presenters to interact with their audience via any device with a net connection and a browser — namely handheld and laptop computers, said winners Jamie Coughlin '02, Avik Mukhopadhyay '02 and Mike Newman '02 said.

Already being piloted in some Princeton and New Jersey City University classrooms, MindSpeak enables students to give "more accurate feedback" to their professors while they are teaching, Newman said.

The group likened the system to "Who Wants to be a Millionaire?" audience polling. A professor can ask a question in a lecture hall and gather anonymous responses, which the software automatically logs.

At the end of a lecture, the professor assesses the data and modifies lesson plans or teaching approaches accordingly.

The team identified the need for such a system when their friends complained about the lack of interaction they had with professors. In big lectures, it is often "very difficult to identify individual students," Mukhopadhyay said.

"At the end of a semester, kids give feedback [to the professors], and think 'What good does it do me?' " he said.

The MindSpeak team competed against five other teams with ideas such as natural fertilizer and a design firm for applications involving fluid mechanics, according to this year's program.

"It's impressive to see what business students can do," said Philip Michaelson, who directed the contest.

During the question-and-answer session the judges "can throw curve balls with their questions," said Adrienne Clark '02, president of the entrepreneurship club.

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But the competitors "handled the questions with grace," she said.

Clark and Michaelson emphasized the importance of the connections that students form with alumni and successful businessmen during the business plan contest.

"It gives students the opportunity to both develop a business idea and at the same time you get good feedback from investors and businessmen," Clark said. "You will not have the ability to expose yourself to this level of business after you leave."

The students behind MindSpeak said they are excited about continuing their project and utilizing their alumni connections after graduation.

Next year they will distribute Cassiopeia pocket PCs with copies of their software to operations research and financial engineering and electrical engineering classes. They hope that in the future, their software will inexpensively improve the efficiency of corporate training.

"We're definitely pursuing this," Coughlin said. "This is a stepping stone for us."