{"id":11622,"date":"2025-01-02T19:02:16","date_gmt":"2025-01-02T19:02:16","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.augsburg.edu\/news\/?p=11622"},"modified":"2025-01-02T19:43:07","modified_gmt":"2025-01-02T19:43:07","slug":"entrepreneurship-students-compete-for-cash-prizes-in-auggie-cup","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.augsburg.edu\/news\/2025\/01\/02\/entrepreneurship-students-compete-for-cash-prizes-in-auggie-cup\/","title":{"rendered":"Entrepreneurship Students Compete for Cash Prizes in Auggie Cup"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"The<\/a>On a chilly December afternoon, 14 business and graphic design students brought the heat in Augsburg\u2019s signature entrepreneurship challenge.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

At stake? Reputation, impact, connections\u2014and $30,000 in cash prizes.<\/span><\/p>\n

The second annual Augsburg Entrepreneurship Cup<\/span><\/a>\u2014better known on campus as the Auggie Cup\u2014engaged three teams of students in a \u201cShark Tank\u201d-style competition judged by local business leaders. Their challenge was to design and pitch a business and marketing plan for a promising new industrial or medical technology.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

\u201cOne of our basic tenets at Augsburg is that experiential learning leads to critical thinking skills,\u201d said George Dierberger, the Thomas ’72 and Karen Howe Professor for Entrepreneurship and chair of Augsburg’s business administration and economics department. \u201cThat\u2019s what the Auggie Cup is all about.\u201d<\/span><\/p>\n

Each team of three or four undergraduates was led by an MBA student coach and assigned to a startup firm with a product on the cusp of commercialization. Ideas were solicited from BETA, a nonprofit early stage accelerator for Minnesota-based technology startups, as well as Augsburg\u2019s Business Advisory Council<\/a>. This year\u2019s projects included AcQtrac\u2019s non-invasive device to monitor cardiovascular health among pediatric patients, SmartAuger\u2019s portable ground-penetrating radar system, and CorRen Medical\u2019s proprietary ultrasound technology to detect and treat peripheral artery disease.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

Over the course of the fall semester, three teams developed and refined a plan to pitch their products to investors, culminating in a competition on December 6. Members of the Business Advisory Council judged each hour-long presentation on the students\u2019 assessment of the market opportunity and competitive environment, the marketing plan and original graphic arts elements, a rigorous financial analysis, and the overall quality of the presentation. More than 120 guests\u2014business leaders, alumni, students\u2019 families, and Augsburg faculty and staff\u2014attended the evening reception and awards ceremony.<\/span><\/p>\n

The AcQtrac Medical team placed first, with students Jim Schewe, Salma Gelle, Adela Leville, and Kat Chaney sharing a $15,000 prize. The SmartAuger team of Luke Peters, Jakob Mohrlok, Manny Weiss, Nolan Mehle, and Destiny Azonwu won the $10,000 second prize, and the CorRen Medical team of Patrick McMonagle, Danny Ho, Char Waver, Pachia Vang, and Anthonella Laurens took third place and $5,000. The cash prizes were made possible by generous supporters of Augsburg\u2019s business, innovation, and entrepreneurship programs, including Mike Nathan and Sara Armstrong, Tom \u201972 and Karen Howe, Big Stone Capital Group, Modulate Capital, Bill Urseth \u201971, and Blaze Credit Union.<\/span><\/p>\n

\u201cThis year\u2019s Auggie Cup was an incredible event full of synergy and teamwork,\u201d said Dierberger. \u201cOur MBA, undergrad business, and graphic design students all did a stellar job at presenting their ideas to the panel of judges and we are grateful they could be rewarded in a real way for their significant efforts.\u201d<\/span><\/p>\n

While the Auggie Cup is targeted towards business, entrepreneurship, and graphic design students, plans are underway for a campus-wide competition this spring. Students from any academic discipline will be invited to deliver a 2\u20133 minute pitch, with the potential for the winning ideas to become full Auggie Cup projects next fall. <\/span><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

On a chilly December afternoon, 14 business and graphic design students brought the heat in Augsburg\u2019s signature entrepreneurship challenge.\u00a0 At stake? Reputation, impact, connections\u2014and $30,000 in cash prizes. The second annual Augsburg Entrepreneurship Cup\u2014better known on campus as the Auggie Cup\u2014engaged three teams of students in a \u201cShark Tank\u201d-style competition judged by local business leaders. …<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":499,"featured_media":11625,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[3228,8],"tags":[4043,946],"class_list":["post-11622","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-kudos","category-students","tag-auggie-cup","tag-entrepreneurship"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.augsburg.edu\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/11622","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.augsburg.edu\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.augsburg.edu\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.augsburg.edu\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/499"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.augsburg.edu\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=11622"}],"version-history":[{"count":5,"href":"https:\/\/www.augsburg.edu\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/11622\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":11628,"href":"https:\/\/www.augsburg.edu\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/11622\/revisions\/11628"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.augsburg.edu\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/11625"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.augsburg.edu\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=11622"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.augsburg.edu\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=11622"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.augsburg.edu\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=11622"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}