Smeal Senior Wins $10,000 Ideablob Competition
For the second time this year, a startup business idea generated at Penn State has won a national competition for the nation’s best small business idea.
Advanta CIO Ami Kassar (right) presents a $10,000 check to Matt Allison.
Smeal Senior Wins $10,000 Ideablob Competition
UNIVERSITY PARK, PA (May 9, 2008) – For the second time this year, a startup business idea generated at Penn State has won a national competition for the nation’s best small business idea.
Smeal College of Business senior Matt Allison won the April contest on Ideablob.com for his startup idea to produce a portable, electronic athletic training device. Representatives from Ideablob.com presented Allison with a $10,000 check on May 8 in the Atrium of Smeal's Business Building.
Allison's concept for a portable personal trainer is currently in development. It would allow users to download workouts from a Web site and then display progress charts, advice for future workouts, and daily nutrition information. The Web site will also function as a social networking site for users.
In March, a team led by Penn State chemical engineering senior Aaron Fleishman won the Ideablob.com competition for their idea called "Mashavu: Networked Health Solutions for the Developing World," which allows medical professionals to e-adopt children from the developing world through the use of modern communications technology.
Ideablob.com is an online community that allows small business owners and entrepreneurs to share their business ideas in exchange for feedback, advice and votes from the community. Advanta, one of the nation's largest credit card issuers in the small business market, awards a $10,000 monthly prize to the best eligible idea, as determined by votes of the Ideablob community.
Khanjan Mehta, a faculty member in the Penn State College of Engineering, served as an adviser to both winning ideas.
REPORTERS & EDITORS: For more information, please contact Wyatt DuBois in the Smeal College of Business Media Relations Office at 814-863-3798 or wed112@psu.edu.
Penn State's Smeal College of Business offers highly ranked undergraduate, MBA, executive MBA, Ph.D., and executive education opportunities to more than 5,500 students at all levels. Featuring academic departments of accounting, finance, marketing, insurance and real estate, management, and supply chain and information systems, the college is also home to major research centers such as the Center for Supply Chain Research, the Institute for the Study of Business Markets, the Center for Digital Transformation, the Farrell Center for Corporate Innovation and Entrepreneurship, the Center for Global Business Studies, and the Center for the Management of Technological and Organizational Change.
