Teams of students competed for the best business idea in the Panasci Business Plan Competition last weekend, with the winning plan, PiezoTouch Inc., raking in a total of $30,000.

The competition was overseen by the Falcone Center for Entrepreneurship and was held for the ninth time this year, said Thomas Kruczek, executive director of the center.

This year’s first prize went to Leena Chitnis, a graduate student in the Martin J. Whitman School of Management. Chitnis was awarded $25,000 on Saturday for her plan for PiezoTouch Inc., which would enable electronic users to send a human touch, wirelessly, to another person. Chitnis was granted an additional $5,000 as the recipient of the Fetner Prize in Sustainable Enterprise.

This is the first time the first-place prize in the Panasci competition and the Fetner Prize have been given to the same business plan, Kruczek said. This is the second year the Fetner Prize has been given out.

‘Basically, I’m developing a product called the electronic skin, or e-skin, that allows people to communicate via touch,’ Chitnis said of PiezoTouch Inc. ‘For instance, if I touch my cellphone, you’ll be able to feel it on your face.’

Chitnis, an MBA student with a concentration in marketing and entrepreneurship, said she wants to further develop the plan to adapt to the needs of the blind and deaf. She wants to be able to send text messages to blind users that will translate into Braille on their smartphone. Users would be able to feel and read the Braille right from the smartphone, she said.

Chitnis said she was extremely pleased and humbled when she won the competition. She is excited about the money awarded to her, but said it was the endorsements that truly mattered in this competition.

‘I needed the endorsement,’ she said. ‘It’ll be easier to convince others I’m a real businesswoman. When I have the ability to raise that kind of money, people believe in me.’

The semifinals of the competition took place on Friday with 16 teams composed of 39 total students, according to a Tuesday SU news release. The teams presented their business plans to business leaders from Syracuse and across the United States. Student teams were judged on creativity, feasibility, innovation and oral presentation.

The top five teams competed in the finals Saturday. The top three teams were selected by judges after the judges read the business pitches and heard the team pitches, according to the release. The top three teams were chosen based on their potential for growth and the ability to attract outside financing, according to the release.

Each year, the competition is funded from money left by the late Henry Panasci, who was a local business leader in Syracuse and the founder of Fay’s Drugs, Kruczek said. Kruczek said Panasci was an outstanding entrepreneur.

The second-place team was Rylaxing LLC, made up of five seniors in the College of Arts and Sciences, the S.I. Newhouse School of Public Communications and Whitman. The Rylaxer is designed to make a twin bed into a comfortable and supportive sofa. The product comes in three sizes, and the creators wanted to make entertainment possible in an already overcrowded dorm room, according to the release. The team was awarded $10,000 for its plan, according to the release.

Two graduate students in the School of Information Studies placed third and earned $5,000 for their GraFighters plan. GraFighters is an online fighting game that allows users to upload drawings, watch them come to life and battle them against other drawings, according to the release. When drawings are uploaded to the website, the characters are scanned, and their strengths, weaknesses and fighting style are determined based on the drawing, according to the release.

This year, Kruczek said he was pleased to see entrepreneurship taking off all over campus and not just within the business school.

‘That’s what makes this year different from all the others so far,’ he said. ‘I can’t even imagine what next year is going to be like.’

medelane@syr.edu

Published on April 19, 2011 at 12:00 pm

Contact Meghin: medelane@syr.edu | @meghinwithani