Ruthie Braunstein/The Hoya Kamran Amjadi gave the keynote address at Friday’s award ceremony.

Robert Piacesi (MBA ’02) and his Advanced Propulsion drove away with the $10,000 prize of Georgetown University’s first ever ideaChallenge Business Plan competition. Piacesi’s winning plan was an initiative to improve fuel efficiency for trucks that could have far-reaching implications for the transportation industry.

The ideaChallenge competition was open to business plans proposed by teams including at least one Georgetown undergraduate or graduate student and was judged by a panel of influential venture capitalists, industry experts and Georgetown professors. Competitors were treated to a gala awards ceremony held in the GU Conference Center Friday.

Piacesi proposed using leveraging technology developed by Southwest Research Institute, a research company in Texas he works for, to develop hybrid electric drive trains for trucks that can be sold on the open market.

The technology improves fuel economy in medium-size and heavy-duty trucks. The significant reduction in the use of fuel, he said, would save large amounts of money for companies using large fleets of vehicles such as United Parcel Service or Federal Express delivery services.

Piacesi said the competition was a good experience and said that ideaChallenge is a great way to encourage entrepreneurship. If this company is founded it would be Piacesi’s second time starting a company.

According to Cyrus Shey (MSB ’01), who helped organize ideaChallenge, competition directors were pleased with the results and hope will become an annual event.

“The ideaChallenge provided a great opportunity for Georgetown students to network with D.C.-area entrepreneurs and venture capitalists,” Shey said.

Blake Helppie (MSB ’01), who co-chaired the ideaChallenge committee along with Shey, said in a press release, “traditionally, Georgetown has been a university known for its world-class international relations and government programs. However, we believe that ideaChallenge will make a significant contribution to Georgetown as a school of entrepreneurship.”

Organizers secured the $10,000 prize through connections with venture capital and information technology firms. In total, 45 teams, or nearly 130 students, competed for prize money and exposure in front of leading venture capitalists. The competition consisted of three rounds, in which teams first submitted an executive summary. The teams chosen to continue then submitted a business plan. In the final round the teams made live presentations to venture capitalist judges.

The final five team finalists each team presented their plan to the panel of judges who decided within 20 minutes on the competitions winner, which was immediately presented at the awards gala.

The first events of the evening, prior to the announcement of the winning team, were two keynote speeches. One of these was Kamran Amjadi, the Chairman, CEO and Co-Founder of e-centives, Inc. Amjadi founded e-centives, which currently manages more than 8 million consumer accounts, in 1996, and has since raised over $90 million in venture capital funding. The other keynote speaker was David Holtzman, the Chairman, CEO and Co-Founder of Opion, Inc. Holtzman was previously Senior Vice President and Technology Officer at Network Solutions, Inc., and enabled the company to expand its service and increase its revenues from $20 million to $500 million. In 1997 Holtzman was named one of the Internet World’s “Eight Who Made a Difference.” He currently sits on the advisory boards of several Internet companies and is an adjunct professor at American University’s Kogod School of Business.

Other finalist business plans included ideas such as a chain of golf simulators in airports, wireless video software and internet based learning incentives for students in high school.

“The true measuring stick is whether the competition will continue – and I think it will,” Helppie said.

He explained that the goal for next year’s competition is to raise $25,000 in prize money and to have more widespread participation from the Georgetown student body. Helppie said that he is encouraged that many students have expressed interest in helping run the competition next year, and at least one of the competition’s sponsors, Revolent Technologies, has indicated they would like to sponsor the competition next year.

“Amadji’s message emphasized the importance of persistence and courage,” Helppie said. “It is this same persistence and courage that will be required of next year’s ideaChallenge organizers in order to successfully increase the stature and profile of a potentially much larger organization.”