Smeal MBA Students Seek Improved Wireless Future With Winning Business Plan

UNIVERSITY PARK, PA -- Armed with a business plan that could revolutionize wireless communication, a team of four MBA students from Penn State’s Smeal College of Business has been awarded $35,000 by Ben Franklin Technology Partners (BFTP). The winning prize in the 5th Annual Ben Franklin Transformation Business Services Network Business Plan Contest, which featured entries from manufacturing- and technology-based start-up companies, will help FrontaLobe, Inc. move forward in its development as a viable business.

Based on an invention that increases antenna reception gain for portable communication devices, FrontaLobe, Inc.—Thinking Antenna Technology expands bandwidth and spectrum availability. Tom Jackson and Doug Werner of Penn State’s College of Engineering developed the technology and the Smeal College team of Jonathan Butz, Krishna Patel, Sean Raynak, and Thad Will developed the business model as part of the MBA program’s entrepreneurship portfolio of courses.

“This award from Ben Franklin kick starts the entire process for FrontaLobe ,” Will said. “We now have the necessary funding to proceed with an intellectual property search and proceed with the subsequent patent filings. The Smeal MBA Program gave us the opportunity to take the entrepreneurship theory taught in the classroom and apply it to the real world, and we've been able to take advantage of that opportunity.”

Tony Warren, Executive Director of Smeal’s Farrell Center for Corporate Innovation and Entrepreneurship, matched the MBA team with inventors Jackson and Werner, and also served as mentor with Andy Gustafson, Assistant Professor of Business Administration. The Farrell Center and the Smeal Dean’s Office provided internal funding.

The Ben Franklin Competition called on entrepreneurs to submit a three-page executive summary of their business plan for review. Seven finalists were then asked to submit a 10-page business plan and make a presentation to a panel of experts.

“The members of the Smeal MBA team have assembled a business plan that captures the exciting possibilities of FrontaLobe ,” Warren said. “They’re fulfilling one of the outreach missions of the Farrell Center, which is to provide business assistance to members of the Penn State community seeking ways to convert research into commercial opportunity.”

BFTP is not the first organization to express interest in the Smeal business plan. In April, the team qualified for the final round of eight teams at the MBA Jungle Business Challenge in New York City, an international case competition featuring 100 business schools and 164 individual teams from around the world. Each team at the event presented its own unique business plan to a panel of top venture capitalists and entrepreneurship experts.

About Ben Franklin Technology Partners
The goal of Ben Franklin Technology Partners ( http://www.benfranklin.org ) is to boost Pennsylvania’s economy through technological innovation. Ben Franklin helps build successful and profitable companies that create sustainable jobs providing a good income. Ben Franklin provides investment capital, operational assistance to emerging companies, and builds infrastructure within the central Pennsylvania region to support the success of entrepreneurs.

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