Startup Weekend East Lansing Winners Announced
Entrepreneurial event had largest turnout ever with over 75 participants
LANSING, Mich. – Lansing Economic Area Partnership (LEAP) announced today the winning new business that resulted from the hard work and dedication of entrepreneurs at the annual Startup Weekend, held Friday, Nov. 4 through Sunday, Nov. 6, 2016 at the Michigan State University (MSU) Innovation Center in East Lansing, Mich. This year’s event had the largest turnout with more than 75 participants.
At the end of the weekend, attendees pitched their businesses to a panel of judges including: Chris Sell, director of Alumni & Entrepreneur Engagement at MSU; Alexa Jones, CEO at TheraB Medical and Amber Shinn, marketing director at MSU Innovation Center. The winning team, Horizon, was made up of Bailey Paxton, Ben Buscarino and Oshan Weerasinghe. The winning team received placement in the ‘Hatched’ event on Nov. 30 and legal formation by Loomis Law to help them continue to develop their business.
Horizon is a location-based search application that looks at people’s social media likes and finds similar things around them when they travel. For example, if someone lives in Lansing and he likes the Lansing Brewing Company, then he travels to New York City, it will find a similar brewery at that destination.
“We were beyond thrilled to see such a large turnout for Startup Weekend. MSU’s new Entrepreneurship and Innovations Experience program played a large role as it incentivizes students to get involved and be active in the entrepreneurial ecosystem. Events like these really highlight the energy and culture of the innovative minds in our region.”
Startup Weekend is a 54-hour event where entrepreneurs take their ideas from concept to a full-blown business. On the first night, attendees pitched ideas for new ventures to the group. These ideas had to be brand new and could not be works in progress. From there, the group voted on the top five to 10 ideas, formed teams around these ideas, and spent the rest of the weekend taking the ideas from the drawing board to reality.
The weekend’s speaker was Brian Town, CEO of Michigan Creative. The event was sponsored by LEAP, Spartan Innovations, MSU Entrepreneur Association and the MSU Broad College of business. For more information about Startup Weekend East Lansing, visit http://www.up.co/communities/usa/lansing/startup-weekend/9246/.
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About LEAP
The Lansing Economic Area Partnership (LEAP) is a coalition of area leaders partnering to build a stronger community for all—working every day to grow, retain and attract business.
About Startup Weekend
Startup Weekend is a global network of passionate leaders and entrepreneurs on a mission to inspire, educate and empower individuals and communities. Teams of participants come to share ideas and launch a series of startups – all in 54 hours. It’s an exciting, productive event with a track record of fostering successful, job creating startup companies across the nation. For more information, visit http://www.up.co/communities/usa/lansing/startup-weekend/9246/.
Category: Press Releases, Entrepreneurship