June 4, 2015

Style Star App Wins 2015 China Business Model Competition

Style Star App Wins 2015 China Business Model Competition

University of Maryland’s Smith School of Business and Peking University’s Guanghua School of Management Host 9th Annual Event 

College Park, Md. – June 4, 2015 – MBA students from the United States and China pitched business ideas vying for more than $7,000 in cash prizes from the University of Maryland’s Robert H. Smith School of Business and Peking University in the 2015 China Business Model Competition. The annual competition is organized by the Smith School’s Dingman Center for Entrepreneurship and host partner, Peking University’s Guanghua School of Management in Beijing. MBA students from the Smith School traveled to Beijing to compete with their counterparts from Peking, Zhejiang University, Tianjin University and the Nankai University. 

A team of Smith School MBA students won the competition’s $3,000 top prize with a pitch for Style Star, a personal stylist mobile app. The competition, now in its ninth year, was the culmination of a business model and study abroad course to China for Smith MBA students, led by the Dingman Center.   

Each finalist team was tasked with pitching a plan for a venture that would do business in China or leverage Chinese resources in some way. Second place and $1,500 went to a Smith School team for their plan for Breathe, an air filter fan product. BCDF-Baby Care Devotion for You from Tianjin University won a total of $1,000 for Third Place and the Audience Choice Award.

Additional finalist teams were recognized for best use of cross-national resources, the best use of the “lean startup” methodology, using business to solve environmental challenges and best online feedback. Judges included Smith School and Dingman Center leaders, and entrepreneurial experts from China. 

The competition is the culminating activity for the Dingman Center’s AdVENTURE Challenge: China global studies program. During the in-country portion of the course, Smith students traveled to Shanghai, Bengbu and Beijing exploring venture creation and global operations in China’s rapidly evolving economy. The trip was the conclusion of a four-credit course on customer discovery and business model generation led by Brent Goldfarb, Dingman Center Academic Director. In addition to the competition, the global studies experience included meetings with local business executives, visits to Shanghai Jiao Tong University’s tech incubator, Chinaccelerator, Beijing’s Zhongguancun Science Park and a day-long trip to the Bengbu Economic Development zone. The students enjoyed several cultural experiences including The Great Wall and the Forbidden City.

Finalists & Winners

1st Place: Style Star (Smith School)
Tiffany Chang
Prerana Dalal
Shuichi Manabe
Justin Taubman 

2nd Place: Breathe (Smith School)
Mark Bizokas
Maurice Nick

3rd Place: BCDF - Baby Care Devotion for You (Tianjin University)   
Bian Jun
Cookie Chi 
Daisy Qiu
Fisher Wang

Elite Mobile Mechanics (Smith School)
Carlos Cedeno
Jerrel Duffy
Luke Gregerson
Pablo Steneri 

Expertide (Tianjin University)
Mandy Meng
Martin Fang
Sunny Lu

Judges

Alex Triantis – Dean, Robert H. Smith School of Business

Brent Goldfarb – Academic Director, Dingman Center for Entrepreneurship

Elana Fine – Managing Director, Dingman Center for Entrepreneurship

Patty Carocci – Assistant Dean of Development & Alumni Relations, Robert H. Smith School of Business

Yan Gao – Deputy Director, Center for Innovation and Entrepreneurship, Guanghua School of Management

David Liu – Executive Director, China Executive Education

Junxi Zhang – CPG Capital Partners

Yichi Zhang – Director, Center for Innovation & Entrepreneurship, Guanghua School of Management

Winston Wang - Managing Director, Shipston Group

About the Dingman Center for Entrepreneurship
The Dingman Center is one of the nation’s pre-eminent institutions where the research, education and practice of entrepreneurship are pursued vigorously. We develop and execute curricular and non-curricular programs that uniquely leverage Smith School thought leadership, experiential learning and our network of practitioners to provide maximum resources to startup businesses. Every initiative is designed to support the Center’s mission to build a community, operating from the Smith School that discovers, equips, connects and celebrates entrepreneurs. In 2014, the Dingman Center received the prestigious NASDAQ Center of Entrepreneurial Excellence Award from the Global Consortium of Entrepreneurship.

 

Media Contact

Greg Muraski
Media Relations Manager
301-405-5283  
301-892-0973 Mobile
gmuraski@umd.edu 

About the University of Maryland's Robert H. Smith School of Business

The Robert H. Smith School of Business is an internationally recognized leader in management education and research. One of 12 colleges and schools at the University of Maryland, College Park, the Smith School offers undergraduate, full-time and flex MBA, executive MBA, online MBA, business master’s, PhD and executive education programs, as well as outreach services to the corporate community. The school offers its degree, custom and certification programs in learning locations in North America and Asia.

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