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"Team Sandwich" — the McGuire Entrepreneurship Program venture team that suggested Wiggio.com (left to
right): Dat Thanh Duong, Michael
DiCenzo, Ben Levine, and Kyle Tek.
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Entrepreneurship Venture Teams Find Communication Solution in Open Innovation Competition
November 2010
By Liz Warren-Pederson
When the McGuire Entrepreneurship Program’s web system for venture team communications lost key features, the program challenged its current class of students to find a new solution.
“We’ve been on the forefront of communications technology for a number of years,” said McGuire Center director Sherry Hoskinson. “The program has always been focused on the real world, and for that reason, students have managed their ventures through cloud computing tools instead of through existing classroom management systems. In the real world, as entrepreneurs, they would be challenged to find their own solution.”
“It makes sense that the program isn't shy about leveraging the creative abilities of its students,” said business economics and finance major Dat Thanh Duong. “Entrepreneurs are pragmatic. The selection process reflected that reality.”
The Open Innovation Challenge provided the venture teams with a list of criteria for the ideal, cloud-based solution and offered $500 to the team that found the best match. In addition to being free and private, the system needed to allow students to communicate with each other and their mentors, upload and store documents, and experiment with different marketing approaches, such as websites.
The finalists were invited to deliver a presentation, and Duong and his teammates Michael DiCenzo, Ben Levine, and Kyle Tek — operating temporarily as “Team Sandwich” while their venture comes together — topped the competition by proposing a two-year-old platform called Wiggio.com.
Read the full story in eller buzz.
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