Today was a huge day for our students in our very busy program. Our Accelerator participants started at 7:00 am this morning and were joined by executives from 41 companies at the first Business Breakfast Social of the program. Participating companies this year included Bernard Health, Credence Health, Habitat for Humanity, Nashville Business Journal, Now Playing Nashville!, Inception Captial Advisors, US Cyrogenics, Caterpillar Financial, Zumi Sushi, and many more.
After successfully navigating their first networking event, we proceeded to Averbuch auditorium at 9:00 am to present the projects for Video Gaming Technology (VGT). 4 representatives from VGT joined us including their CEO Jon Yarbrough and Doug Edwards, Chief HR Officer. The teams presented their ideas in order they selected based upon the time they completed their “deliverables” for VGT. Each team had 10 minutes to make their presentation and 5 minutes for Q&A with their clients. Following the presentations, the teams left the auditorium and ranked the presentations themselves and voted on their most valuable player (MVP) for the project while the VGT representations studied the teams’ Storyboards and Handouts and ranked the teams from best to worst in their project designs and presentations.
Overall, VGT was thrilled with our exceptional students and their ideas and found it incredibly difficult to choose a winning presentation. Upon finalizing their decision, all of the Accelerator participants came back into Averbusch and VGT presented their decision. Starting with 8th place and moving to 1st, VGT highlighted the parts of each presentation they enjoyed and provided the student with feedback on areas that they could improve.
While all of the presentations were strong, Team OneShot (Team 1) came away with the win in 1st round of competition. Team members include: Priscilla Arellano, Alex Dowd, Kate Grumbles, Donny McCunniff, Eppa Rixey, Will Parker Roe, Riley Strong, Fark Tari, and Patrick Widen. VGT gave each of Team OneShot’s members a glass slot machine styled trophy and $50 gift card. Team 7 and Team 3 came in second and third place respectively.
The “Best Research” recognition went to Team 4. Team members include: Alexandra Brown, Christopher Cooper, Ryan Foley, Courtney LeBow, Nicole Quinn, Mark Shesser, Erin Steigerwald and Fred Tang. Team 2 and Team 5 came in second and third place respectively.
The “Best Storyboard” recognition went to Team 2. Team members include: Austin Campbell, Christina Chen, Jennifer Duty, James Kaplan, Stacie Pawlicki, Meaghan Rymer, Stephanos Stroop, and Jens von der Linden. Team 3 and Team 7 came in second and third place respectively.
Each team also selected MVPs (Most Valuable Players). MVPs for this first round of competition: Priscilla Arellano, Austin Campbell, Nick Cromydas, Catherine Wearn, Erin Steigerwald, Ryan Stutler, Tyler Hagen, John Zic, Lyle Holmes and Vince Nord.
Following the award ceremony, Kimberly Pace led the faculty in evaluating the presentation skills of each team before breaking for lunch (yes, they did all of this before 12:30).
After lunch, the students attended Steve Hoeffler’s marketing lecture. Mr. Hoeffler introduced the students to a couple of the extremely successful marketing campaigns (Burger King, Dove, and BMW specifically) and how to use the internet as an effective marketing tool. Students then had their first team feedback session where they focused on identifying the successes and failures of their first project and how they could improve for their next 6 projects. Our participants spent the rest of the day working on the Arrington Vineyards project we will present next week and we closed up the day around 9 pm.
If you want to see our photo library, you may do so at http://picasaweb.google.com/VanderbiltAccelerator
Michael Burcham
Faculty Director, Accelerator 2009
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