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Feature Event 
Cupid's arrow may have gotten you, now go for
his Cup!
Cupid's Cup is a $10,000
monetary award given to the best student
start-up business. The First
Annual Cupid's Cup will be awarded by Kevin Plank,
CEO and founder of Under Armour. The winner will
receive a $10,000 cash prize to invest in their
company and possession of Cupid's Cup for a one year
period.
Cupid's Cup Business
Competition - Final Round May 19th
Free General Admission -
Register today!
1524 Van Munching
Hall - Frank Auditorium
Guest Speaker: Kevin Plank, CEO of Under Armour and
UMD alum
Competition Agenda May 19th:
1:30 p.m. - 2:30 p.m.
-
Finalists business pitch and presentation/questions
from the audience and judges
2:30 p.m. - 3:00 p.m.
-
Guest
Speaker Kevin Plank, CEO of Under Armour and UMD
alumni, to talk about his entrepreneurial ventures
3:00 p.m.- 3:30 p.m.
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Reception, Winner
announcement and presentation of Cupid's Cup
Register Today
to attend this exciting competition and a chance to hear
Kevin Plank speak live about how his entrepreneurial
ventures in college became what Under Armour is
today!
For details about this event
please contact
Andrea Galati or
call 301-405-9511 to receive more information.
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Upcoming Events
Entrepreneurship
Workshop: Smart Strategies for Smarter Growth
Entrepreneurs, Please join us on June 22nd for a
1-day workshop dedicated to learning about
sustainable business growth strategies. Registration
and workshop details will be provided in our June
newsletter.
Thursday, June 22nd, 8:00 a.m. - 5:00 p.m., 2517 Van
Munching Hall
Please contact
Melissa
Carrier if you would like more information.
Pitch Dingman Competition
This event is held monthly and is a follow-up to our weekly walk-in
Pitch Dingman held on Fridays at 11:00 a.m.
Come to the monthly competition, present your
business idea in 5 minutes to a panel of judges from
the Dingman Center, and you could win $500! For
information about the weekly Pitch Dingman sessions
on Fridays or the monthly Pitch Dingman
competitions, e-mail Derek Vlcko at
dvlcko@rhsmith.umd.edu.
Fridays, 11:00 a.m. - 12:00 p.m., 3570 Van Munching
Hall
Final Pitch Dingman Review of the Semester, May 12th
Speaker
Event - Bob Koran
Struggling to find
how you can put your MBA to work,
make money, and still have
fun?
Join Bob Koran,
partner of United Communications
Group (UCG), an information products
and services firm, and winner of
Washingtonian Magazine's Top 50
Places to Work Award to hear how
he helped build UCG from the ground
up into an award-winning global
organization with this simple recipe
for success: Quality, Money, and
Fun.
Monday, May 8th, 6:00 p.m. - 6:45
p.m., Ronald Regan Building,
Classroom 330B
Smith
China Business Plan Competition
The University of Maryland's Robert H. Smith School
of Business is sponsoring its second annual China
Business Plan Competition. The competition, themed
"Building Leaders for the Digital Economy" is
organized by the Smith School's Dingman Center for
Entrepreneurship and will bring together
entrepreneurs and business executives from around
the world to compete for a total of $50,000 in prize
money, including a $25,000 grand prize,
$15,000 second prize and $10,000 third prize.
For entry details and
more information please see the
Smith website.
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The
Dingman Center's newest addition:
Associate Director, Melissa K.
Carrier
Melissa Carrier joined the
Dingman Center this April after 11 years of leading
organizational growth for technology companies
ranging from Fortune 500 to early stage start-ups.
Ms. Carrier brings broad experience across corporate
and product-line positions including acquisitions
and divestitures, venture investments, partnerships,
new product launches, system implementations and
marketing programs.
Ms. Carrier joined the Dingman
Center from AT&T, where she served as Finance
Director for AT&T Mergers and Acquisitions. While at
AT&T, Ms. Carrier also led investments for the
company's corporate venture fund. In this role,
Melissa had lead responsibility for managing the
investment pipeline, analyzing financial and market
data, performing on-site due diligence, and
executing deals. During Ms. Carrier's tenure at
AT&T, she also served as the Product Manager for the
MVNO wireless data content offering/platform as well
as Manager of Strategy and Business Development for
AT&T Consumer Services.
Ms. Carrier began her career as a
process consultant for Andersen Consulting. During
this time, she worked with U.S. and European clients
on business process design and ERP system
implementations. Subsequently, Ms. Carrier served
as a Director at two startup technology companies
focused on web-based business-to-business
strategies. Immediately prior to obtaining her MBA,
Melissa led strategic development of core processes
for SAP's Global Solution Center.
Ms. Carrier received a BS in
Chemical Engineering from The Ohio State University
and an MBA with Honors in Finance and Strategic
Management from The Wharton School of The University
of Pennsylvania.
Melissa currently lives with her
husband, son, and flat-coated retriever in Potomac,
MD.
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Event Summaries
20th
Anniversary Gala - April 5th
 The Dingman Center's
20th anniversary brought together a wide range of
individuals whose lives have been impacted by the
Center during the past two decades. Past Dingman
Center Scholars, Board members, Entrepreneurs in
Residence and local entrepreneurs and investors all
showed up to celebrate the accomplishments of the
center in fostering entrepreneurship in the local
and regional economy. The highlight of the event was
a keynote speech delivered by Michael Dingman which
encouraged entrepreneurs to continue building and
creating opportunities and to determine ways to
thrive in a changing world. He especially focused on
the rising dominance of China and the hunger of the
Chinese to build successful companies. He also
cautioned US government regulators to not create
regulations that stifle growth and add significant
transaction costs to the economic market system.
Rudy Lamone and Charlie
Heller were both recognized for their significant
contributions to the growth and development of the
Dingman Center over the past two decades. Howard
Frank spoke about the importance of entrepreneurship
in driving the global economy and how, coupled with
technology and globalization, it represents one of the
key trends of our time and a key component of a
Smith School education. It was a wonderful event
that represented many of the strengths of the Smith
School and celebrated Michael Dingman for his
tremendous generosity and vision to aid in the
growth of the nationally recognized Dingman Center.
View the Program portion of the event.
Dingman Day Lunch - Featuring Honest Tea - April
21st
Honest Tea spoke to a
room full of interested students about its explosive
success and growth in the organic drink market.
They also introduced the company's latest product,
Tangerine Green Tea. At ten calories per bottle,
Tangerine Green is the lowest calorie drink Honest
Tea has rolled out to the market. Honest Tea's
one man marketing team spoke on the marketing
struggles and successes they encountered with
Tangerine Green.
Tangerine Green was set
to be called Honest Tea Zero, signifying the zero
calorie per serving aspect of the drink, when at the
last minute a recalculation of the tea's ingredients
showed a calorie count of greater than 0! Honest Tea
lived up to its brand name and immediately removed
the name from the bottle and now promotes it's
newest drink Tangerine Green at 10 calories per
bottle.
After a taste test of
Tangerine Green and a lively question and answer
session the lunch concluded with many new organic
tea drinkers!
Tech
Visionary Series - Alternative Energy - April 27th
Rising energy prices,
increasing world wide demand and national security
concerns are driving investment dollars toward the
alternative energy sector like never before. Experts
in solar energy, biofuels, hydrogen generation, and
fuel cell technology will discuss the current
landscape and future horizons in this exciting area.
Learn how renewable energy trends are affecting
views on energy use management, transportation and
construction, and how these views are creating new
investment opportunities. This panel will help you
develop an effective strategy to evaluate
alternative energy ventures.
The slides of our 4
panelists are linked below:
Dr. Greg Jackson
Associate Professor
Dr. Ashwani
Gupta
Professor of Mechanical Engineering
Barney S. Rush
CEO,
H2Gen Innovations, Inc.
John W. Spears
President, Sustainable Design Group Inc.
President, International Center for Sustainable
Development
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Dingman Scholars doing great things!
Valerio Zanini launches his start-up company Goozex
 Ambition
and ingenuity are alive and well among the student
body at the university. Currently two students,
undergraduate economics major Jonathan Dugan, and
second year MBA student Valerio Zanini, are aiming
to turn their innovative business vision into
reality. How often do students and their peers
discuss inventive ideas and shrug them off as silly
dreams? Dugan and Zanini are doing just the opposite
with their business idea called…GOOZEX.
According to the co-founders,
Goozex.com will revolutionize the way used video
games are bought and sold. By allowing gamers to
buy and sell used games quickly, easily and at an
affordable price, Goozex will fill a clear need in
the video game industry that gouges gamers with the
costs of new and used games. The founders of Goozex
knew there had to be a better way, and set out to
develop an innovative online platform that would
facilitate online trading of video games across
different geographical,social, and age groups, at an
affordable price.
The service is unique because of
the internal Goozex currency, which allows users to
fully leverage the equity in their video games by
trading their games for Goozex points, not for
money. The company is also developing an advantage
in the marketplace with its unique brand identity
which will cater to the video gamer.
Last week the Company released
the first version of the web-site that allows users
to pre-register for updates on the development and
for invitation to participate in the beta testing.
The official launch of the system is expected to be
on July 1st, 2006.
The company was incorporated in
Maryland on March 14, 2006 and is currently
incubated by the Dingman Center for
Entrepreneurship.
Corporate web-site:
www.goozex.com
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CAN Success Stories
April Update
The Dingman
Center for Entrepreneurship's Capital Access Network
sponsored by Deloitte has some exciting
updates about the success of several of our
presenting companies in raising Angel funding,
creating important strategic relationships and
making further strides in developing their products
and bringing them to market. For selected presenting
companies we now offer the ability, through Stream
Center, to view their streaming video and PowerPoint
presentations.
Sensics:
As a direct result of their December CAN
Presentation, Sensics recently closed
on a $150,000 round of Angel funding.
Sensics produces virtually reality headsets and the
software that drives them for use in design and
simulation. For a streaming video of Sensics'
presentation
CLICK HERE
or for more information contact:
Yuval Boger,
CEO, 443-226-2967, yuval@sensics.com ,
www.sensics.com
Aquity ID:
This company which presented at the CIC in October ,
has significantly advanced its RFID technology. As a
result in mid-march sold its first version
as part of a large contract in the Netherlands. For
more information contact:
William J.
Poulsen - President/CEO 410-951-9144,
www.AcuityID.com
AON:
Producer of bleeding edge optical storage devices
and another presenter at CIC has raised
another $1 million dollars from friends and
family as part of a 3 million A Round. They are
continuing to seek out additional early-stage
funding to complete the round, and expect to be
shipping samples in Q4 of this year to sales targets
in the network storage industry. Contact:
Glenn
Gladney, President,
ggladney@aol.com,
732-866-0968
Cident:
This company
televises foreign language programming to large
immigrant populations in the United States that is
otherwise unavailable through traditional channels.
Since their December presentation to CAN, Cident has
opened a $750,000 Convertible Note as
part of its Series A. They have received very
strong interest from several TV station owners.
Cident is hoping that a well structured VC deal will
drive participation from these potential strategic
broadcasting investors. For Cident's presentation in
streaming video
CLICK HERE
Contact:
XTS:
XTS which provides advanced reporting tools to
Citrix administrators has recently received a
bridge round of $100,000 comprised of
$50,000 from a strategic partner and $50,000 from
MD DBED. Their product launched in February and a 15
day evaluation version was immediately downloaded by
50 potential customers. Three Citrix Platinum partners
have joined the XTS reseller network: two in the US and
another in London. In addition, XTS was chosen to
become a Dingman Center Portfolio Company. To view
XTS' presentation in streaming Video
CLICK HERE
or Contact:
Eric
Spiegel, CEO, 410-382-8220,
espiegel@xtsinc.com,
www.xtsinc.com
InfraSi:
Has added a Chief Marketing Officer to
their management team. Joel Sachs brings twenty
years of IT marketing experience to the already
experienced InfraSi executive team. Most recently
Mr. Sachs served as CMO of Riptech, Inc. InfraSi has
continued to refine their economical enterprise
storage solutions and is continuing to look for $1
million in Series A funding. To view InfraSi's
streaming video presentation with slides
CLICK HERE
or Contact:
Wick
Keating, President, CEO, 443-534-3457,
wkeating@infrasi.com,
www.infrasi.com.
CAN facilitates funding relationships between area
start-ups, and angel and seed investors. Part of the
Robert H. Smith School of Business at the University
of Maryland, the DCE runs CAN. The DCE recruits
presenters from the Maryland area, particularly from
CAN's member incubators: the Chesapeake Innovation
Center , Emerging Technology Centers , Maryland
Technology Development Center, and Silver Spring
Innovation Center . Silicon Valley Bank also
sponsors CAN.
Spring 2006 Breakfast
Series
Wednesday, May 17 from 9:30 to
11:30 AM in the Executive Dining Room of the
Robert H. Smith School of Business, University
of Maryland in College Park.
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Partner Events
Early Stage East 2006 Ninth Annual Venture
Conference
May 8th and 9th 2006 DuPont Country Club & Brantwyn
Estate
Early Stage East has remained
geographically the largest venture conference
focused on early stage companies from New England to
the Carolinas since 1998. More than 375 companies
have presented at Early Stage East conferences and
have gone on to raise more than $650 million in
venture funding. Some featured industries include
information technology, life sciences, enterprise
software, pharmaceutical industries, industrial bio
technology and many more. For more information on
Early Stage east visit
www.earlystageeast.org.
HCIL's 23rd
Annual Symposium
June 1st and 2nd 2006
Human-Computer Interaction Laboratory at the
University of Maryland
The HCIL's Annual
Symposium will highlight the cutting-edge research
being conducted in the Human-Computer Interaction
Laboratory at the University of Maryland. The
Symposium will take place Thursday, June 1st,
followed by a day of tutorials and workshops Friday,
June 2nd. There will be a series of talks followed
by demonstrations of all of the lab projects with
time to meet and talk with researchers in an
informal setting.
For more information and
to register please visit their
website.
2nd Annual National Women's Business
Conference
Jun 12th
2006 J. W. Marriott in central Washington, DC
This conference features
exemplary speakers, workshops, exhibit hall, and
loan fair. All of this in addition to government
agency matchmaking sessions and the media interview
roundtables make this conference one not to be
missed. Register for this event and find out more
at
www.businesswomensconference.com.
3rd Annual
Digital Media Conference
June 23rd 2006
Ritz-Carlton in Tysons Corner
Don't miss the event the Washington Post calls “a
confab of powerful communicators and content
providers in the region.” This information
gathering and powerful networking event is intended
for media, entertainment and technology businesses,
educational institutions, and government agencies
involved in the digital distribution of media. For
sponsor packages, speaker information, contacts, and
additional information visit
www.DigitalMediaConference.com.
When registering be sure to mention you are a
Dingman Community Member and receive a 25% discount
on your registration fee!
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THE DINGMAN CENTER FOR
ENTREPRENEURSHIP
Founded by Rudy Lamone in 1986, the Dingman Center was one of
the first of its kind in the country and has emerged as a
top-ranked entrepreneurship center. Thanks to initial funding
with a generous grant from Michael D. Dingman, founder of the
Signal Corporation (now part of Honeywell International), the
Dingman Center continues to grow as a regional and national
catalyst in the field of entrepreneurship. The Center is now
aggressively evolving, and in some areas, is expanding its
services to further its role as a leader in the student,
regional, and academic entrepreneurial communities.
The Dingman Center is currently led by:
Asher Epstein, Managing Director
Dr. Charles Heller, Chairman of the Board and Director Emeritus
Dr. Scott Koerwer, Associate Dean,
Professional Programs and Services
Please visit our website at
http://www.rhsmith.umd.edu/dingman.
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