Biz Plan Competition announces second-round winners

After sifting through a record 85 applications, the organizers of the Tulane Business Plan Competition have announced the 20 second-round qualifiers who have been invited to submit full business plans. Those 20 teams-10 in the business innovation track and 10 in the social entrepreneurship track-are vying for the right to present their plans to a panel of judges during the live round of the competition on April 17. Each of the first-place teams will receive a cash prize of $20,000.

In the business innovation division, the second-round qualifiers are Good Fish Farms (Northwestern University), Hydrocoal Technologies LLC (Kennesaw State University), InnoMedic LLC (Tulane University), J&J Solution Inc. (University of Iowa), Joy Theatre (Tulane University), PassPro-tech (University of Texas at Dallas), Purus Technologies (University of Manitoba), Synthex Technologies (Johns Hopkins University), Tears for Life (University of Arkansas) and Universal Exports Group Inc. (Tulane University).

In the social entrepreneurship division, the second-round qualifiers are ByteMatter Pvt. Ltd. (Tulane University), Clean India (University of Virginia), Easy Earth: Biodegradable Packaging (Tulane University), Global Sante Journal (Northwestern University), Gyan: 100 words to 1000 rupees (Northwestern University), KAIEN (Northwestern University), Policypitch.com (Tulane University), SainTerre (Brigham Young University), SENO Social Venture Accelerator Corps (Tulane University) and SolarCycle (Georgetown University).

The three finalists in each division invited to present their plans during the live round of the competition will be announced on March 20.

This year's competition received a record 85 applications, with submissions from as far away as Canada, Mexico, India, Sweden and Turkey. That number of applications represents a 250 percent increase from last year's competition.