DATE: March 1, 2005

A team of students from the Bharathidasan Institute of Management in Tamil Nadu, India, won the inaugural Global Social Entrepreneurship Competition, held Friday at the UW Business School.

The team of Santhosh Narasimhan, Deepak Kumar Bhatter, Anita Parthasarathy and Saravanan Sekar took the $5,000 top prize with their plan to launch ProGreen, a manufacturer and exporter of low-cost, bio-degradable cups and plates made from the sheath of the areca tree, a native species that proliferates in India.

In the competition, teams of both graduate and undergraduate students from the UW, Brigham Young University and several foreign universities presented their creative and commercially sustainable solutions for reducing poverty through new business development. The competition's focus on social entrepreneurship required that competitors' business plans demonstrate both social and financial returns on investments.

Honorable mention awards of $2,500 each went to:

• Khomh Foutse, Fosso Pouangue Arnaud and Mpouassou Rose Mirielle Kombang, from the University of Yaounde in Cameroon, for their plan to start W.A.T.E.R., a company monitoring contaminated water systems and groundwater sources in Cameroon.
  
  
• Vivek Patel, Vikram Singh Parmar and Ashis Jalote Parmar, from the Indian Institute of Technology, for Indian Health Systems (Aarogya), a provider of quality, affordable medical care to India’s disconnected rural villages.
  
  
• Abdul Memon, Christina Maiers, John Hoover, Sharon Walker and Shannon Mills, a team of UW students from the Business School and the Evans School of Public Affairs, for their Pakistan Technology Incubator (KIREN), aiming to stem the brain drain of Pakistani IT professionals.
  

Two units within the Business School — the Center for Technology Entrepreneurship and the Global Business Center — hosted the event, along with the UW's Daniel J. Evans School of Public Affairs.

"I was impressed and touched by the level of execution and exuberance that all of the students brought to this competition," said Christopher Klemm, director of the Center for Technology Entrepreneurship. "The students described the experience as one they’ll remember forever. And it was a wonderful way for the University of Washington to promote the launching of viable businesses that will address key issues of poverty and improve the quality of life in the developing world—companies that will do well by doing good."

The event was sponsored by the University of Washington, the UW Business School, Howard and Lynn Behar, the Initiative for Global Development, a Seattle-based alliance of business and civic leaders, and Delta Airlines. Teams were awarded more than $20,000 in travel scholarships, and $12,500 in prize money.