Wharton Entrepreneurial Programs (WEP) this month announced the 2011 winners of the Wharton Venture Awards, which provide $10,000 in prize money to each of four students so they can develop their ventures full-time over the summer in lieu of a traditional internship. Winners were chosen by a committee of alumni venture capitalists and entrepreneurs.
“The Wharton Venture Award will allow us to focus on building a great product this summer, instead of focusing on how we’re going to pay our bills,” Wharton Venture Award winner Mike Kijewski, founder of Gamma Basics, said in a statement. “But the benefits of winning the award aren’t just financial. It’s a huge vote of confidence from the entrepreneurial community at Wharton, which goes a long way with our investors and early customers,” he added.
Kijewski will use his summer to develop GrayCAD, a software application that helps hospitals assess their radiation safety compliance during capital equipment upgrades. Other winning ventures this year include Osus, Inc., weightlifting you can wear; Coursekit, which lets students follow class assignments, lectures and exams in one place while keeping in touch with classmates; and Mooblue, a real-time bidding mobile ad exchange.
WEP hosts a range of activities and initiatives that, like the Wharton Venture Award, are designed to support Wharton student and alumni entrepreneurs who choose to follow alternative career paths. A student-run “Founders Club” provides peer-to-peer mentoring, newly hired staff members in the MBA Career Services Office serve students seeking positions at startups and entrepreneurial scholarships and awards are at an all-time high.
For more information on WEP awards, click here.
Read the full article: Wharton Venture Awards Support Start-Up Ventures in Lieu of Summer Internships