On April 9 at 6 p.m., three teams of students will present their business plans to a panel of judges as they vie to win the $40,000 Tech Valley Collegiate Business Plan Competition. The open competition is sponsored by the Severino Center for Technological Entrepreneurship in the Lally School of Management and Technology.

Finalist presentations will take place in room 330 of the Darrin Communications Center. The winner of the competition will be announced after the presentations. Campus is invited to attend.

Finalists include two student teams from Rensselaer and another from Hudson Valley Community College (HVCC):

Moblinx Systems, from Rensselaer, has combined entertainment, navigation, and communication software and hardware into one audio device for the car.

Orca Gear, another Rensselaer team, integrates technology into apparel, and has developed a jacket with a lightweight liner that inflates automatically when the coat is immersed in water or when a ripcord is pulled.

And Writing Methods, from Hudson Valley Community College, provides instruction to learning-disabled high school students on how to write a first-year, graduate-school-level paper and how to score well on the writing portion of the Graduate Record Exam (GRE).

“The teams have wonderful business plans, and they all offer some truly unique products and services,” said Jeanne Stefanik, manager of the Severino Center. “The presentations promise to be very interesting.”

First-, second-, and third-place winners receive $5,000, $4,000, and $3,000, respectively. The winning team will have the opportunity to receive an additional $20,000 in incremental seed funding and $8,500 in legal counsel and patent application services. The group will also be sponsored by the Severino Center at a national business plan competition.

Judges for the contest are Richard Hannis, district director for the Small Business Administration’s Service Corps and former CEO of the New York State Private Industry Council; Michael Janse, associate with ARCH Venture Partners; and Thomas LeFevre ’71, co-founder of Intuit and founder of Wealth Structuring Advisors.

The competition is sponsored by the Severino Center, ARCH Venture Partners, Honen & Wood, PC; and Hoffman, Warnick & D’Allesandro LLC. For more information, go to http://scte.mgmt.rpi.edu/springbpc.html.