Student pitches included the following: Space Worm presented by Kevin Golvin YOUNG - Liberia presented by Jefferson King RapeAlert - presented by Emily Forsythe and Emily Turner GreenAgora - presented by Matthew Little and Sanjit Anilesh YouTube EduConnection - presented by Rahkeem Morris Bernales & Goretti - presented by Constanza Ontaneda and Angeline Stuma WakeWell Pillow - presented by Mathieu Francois van Vliet, Vincent Wong, Anne-Raphaelle Aubry and George Han CentriPEDAL Cycle - presented by Joshua Groleau HireCube, Inc. - presented by Aniq Rahman, Govind Nagubandi, Jaydev Mahadevan and Bobby Miller Artist Generation.com - presented by Antonio Cardona and Matt Malleo M.E.S.S. Express (Moving Every Student Safely) - presented by Matthew Kochman, Erica Brophy, Woody Peek and James Idleburg Hydrogen Farming - presented by Ken Colwell
Miles Biggs is the founder of Marshfillows, LLC. He started Marshfillows after taking business courses in college and gaining a patent on placing chocolate into a marshmallow.
Miles Biggs is pursuing an undergraduate degree at Cornell University.
Mac Bishop is a Portland, Oregon native, and ringleader of the madness at Wool&Prince. Though some members of the media have dubbed him "the inventor of wool," Mac's actual day-to-day involves operations and marketing.
Before Wool&Prince was launched, Mac worked at consumer product manufacturer, Unilever. Mac is also a co-founder of NativeX which produces products which support Native American artists and their communities.
Mac Bishop graduated from Cornell University.
Leonard Bisk is an entrepreneur who has started six successful companies, sold three, and taken one public. He currently works as a strategic marketing and management consultant, and has advised businesses throughout Europe, the Far East, and North America.
Leonard Bisk is a graduate of Cornell University.
Jim Bittner is a partner in Singer Farms. In addition, he serves as President and General Manager of the operation. Singer Farms is a fruit farm which produces apples, peaches, apricots, plums, cherries and other smaller specialty fruit items.
Jim Bittner is a graduate of Cornell University.
Robert E. Bixby is a noted authority on the theory and practice of optimization. He is Research Professor of Management in Rice University's Jesse H. Jones Graduate School of Management and Research Professor and Noah Harding Professor Emeritus of computational and applied mathematics at Rice University's Department of Computational and Applied Mathematics.
Dr. Bixby has held academic positions at Cornell University, University of Kentucky, and Northwestern University. He has held visiting faculty positions at University of Wisconsin-Madison; Institut fur Operations Research in Bonn, Germany; Institut fur Mathematik der Universitat Augsburg, Germany; and, he received a Humboldt Foundation Senior Scientist Award which supported his work at the Konrad-Zuse Zentrum fur Informations Technik and the Technische Universitat in Berlin, Germany.
Dr. Bixby is Chairman of the Scientific Advisory Board for the Matheon DFG Research Center, Mathematics for Key Technologies (www.matheon.de). He is formerly Vice President and President of the Mathematical Programming Society and co-founder of CPLEX Optimization. CPLEX Optimization was sold to ILOG, Inc. in 1997. Dr. Bixby was an ILOG board member from 1997 to 2000, President of the ILOG Technical Advisory Board, and ILOG's Chief Scientific Officer. In 1997, Dr. Bixby was elected to the National Academy of Engineering and is a charter member of The Academy of Medicine, Engineering and Science of Texas (TAMEST).
Robert Bixby earned a B.S. in Industrial Engineering from the University of California-Berkeley and an M.S. and Ph.D. in Operations Research from Cornell University.
John Blackburn is president of BullEx Digital Safety, a company that has developed a novel clean-burning, safe and effective fire extinguisher training system. The invention was sparked in an undergraduate engineering course at RPI.
John Blackburn is a graduate of Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute.
Scott Blackwell is the founder of Immaculate Baking Company. At first, it was a desperate need for college tuition money that fueled his first foray into the food business. Using his knack for creative resourcefulness, Scott began selling homemade pies (made in his tiny apartment) to local Greenville restaurants. What began as a venture of desperation soon became a viable little business with over 28 restaurants buying his extraordinary pies. After college, several other food ventures followed suit. From driving a seafood truck up and down the South Carolina coast to establishing Ben and Jerry's 9th ice cream distributorship (covering the Carolinas), Scott absorbed everything he learned along the way. At 23, Scott sold his Ben and Jerry's distributorship, paid off his student loans, and moved to Columbia, SC with 30 dollars in his pocket. What began as a spontaneous itch to try something different soon led to the grand opening of his restaurant, Immaculate Consumption, a popular gathering spot with an eclectic menu and home of the only coffee roasting machine in town! Inspired by the cult following of his artisan-roasted coffee, Scott began making cookies and biscotti to be served with the fresh espresso and soon crowds were pouring through the doors not to eat funky sandwiches and sip lattes but to satisfy the cravings for his infamous pancake-sized cookies! It didn't take long for him to recognize the incredible potential of his famous cookie recipes, and he sold the restaurant and moved to Flat Rock, NC in order to pursue that full time. Well, like many people who drop everything to follow a dream, Scott discovered that it wasn't quite as glamorous as it sounded. There he was doing exactly what he wanted to do, but doing it in his two-car garage, and he suddenly found himself lacking both inspiration and confidence. With this in mind, he turned to folk art, an old interest that had never failed to inspire him, and began traveling, often for days at a time, to visit with different folk artists he had befriended in the past. While driving one day, he had a revelation - why not combine his two passions, folk art and cookies, into the start of his new business? With that thought, Scott returned to his garage, newly inspired, and Immaculate Baking Company was born. Almost 12 years have passed since then, but Scott is more passionate about the food business than ever before. He still develops all of the recipes himself and can be found most any day scouring the grocery aisles for signs of new products and new trends. Aside from his overwhelming interest in Immaculate, Scott is also an avid folk art collector, founder of the Folk Artist's Foundation and has even dipped into the world of filmmaking to complete the 10-year documentary project about Southern folk artists entitled "All Rendered Truth."
Earl Blanks is a former owner of a Party City franchise. Prior to his involvement with Party City, Blanks had started a small consulting business, the Small Business Marketing Planning Center, which provided marketing consulting services to smaller companies that generated $3-5 M per year in sales. Prior to that experience, Blanks worked at Procter & Gamble for over 7 years. Earl Blanks received his undergraduate degree from University of Arkansas and his MBA from Cornell University.
Ariana Blossom is an Executive and Business Coach. In addition, she is a blogger for the Huffington Post. She served for four years in the U.S. Army and received her undergraduate degree from Wells College.
Richard S. Blumberg, M.D. is the co-founder of Syntonix. Dr. Blumberg is currently a Professor of Medicine at Harvard Medical School and Chief of the Gastroenterology Division at Brigham and Women's Hospital in Boston.
In addition, Dr. Blumberg is Director of Gastroenterology Research, and Director of the Laboratory of Mucosal Immunology at Brigham and Women's Hospital. He serves as Chairman of the National Scientific Advisory Committee for Crohn's & Colitis Foundation of America, is Co-Director of the Harvard Digestive Diseases Center and a former member of the Immunological Sciences Study Section of the National Institutes of Health. Dr. Blumberg is an elected member of the American Society of Clinical Investigation and Association of American Physicians, and is Chair of the Immunology and Microbiology Section of the American Gastroenterological Association.
Dr. Blumberg received a B.S. in Biological Sciences from Carnegie-Mellon University, an M.D. from Jefferson Medical College, and an M.B.A from Northeastern University and holds board certifications in Internal Medicine, Infectious Diseases and Gastroenterology following fellowship training at Cornell University Medical College and Harvard Medical School.
Laurence J. Blumberg, M.D. is the co-founder of Syntonix. Dr. Blumberg has extensive experience in the management, financing and development of biotechnology and medical technology companies.
In 1999, he formed Blumberg Capital Management LLC that is focused on investments in the life sciences field. Prior to that, he spent five years as Vice President, Equity Research at Alliance Capital Management, L.P. specializing in biotechnology and medical products and before that was an independent healthcare consultant to S Squared Technology, a technology hedge fund. He is also a co-founder of Cambridge Heart, Inc., a medical device firm, serves on the board of the Heart Research Institute of St. Michael's Medical Center, and is a member of the Board of Overseers of the School of Science, Brandeis University.
Dr. Blumberg received a B.A. in Physics from Brandeis University, an M.D. from Temple University School of Medicine, and an M.B.A. from Columbia University School of Business.