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The moot point Some of Asia's best and brightest MBA students arrived in Honolulu this week to compete in a three-day event known as Asia Moot Corp. 2002.
Asia Moot Corp. brings some of the
best MBA business plans to Hawaii
By Lyn Danninger
ldanninger@starbulletin.comMoot Corp. is a business plan competition launched originally by the University of Texas at Austin 19 years ago. The intent of the competition is to launch new companies as well as build and strengthen entrepreneurship business education.
Hosted for the first time by the University of Hawaii College of Business Administration, the winner among 12 teams earns $5,000 in prize money and the right to compete against other teams from around the world in the national Moot Corp. event held in May at the University Texas at Austin.
The winner of the national event receives $100,000 in seed capital to launch their business venture.
Teams entered in the competition this year come from some of the most prestigious universities in Japan, China, India, Singapore, Taiwan, Thailand and Korea. A team from UH's College of Business Administration is also entered.
During the next few days they get to showcase their ideas at the East-West Center and be grilled by a team of business professionals.
The competition is serious business for those entered. Not only are they competing in a prestigious event, they mix, mingle and show their stuff to potential investors.
One of judges of the competition, local venture capitalist Bill Richardson of HMS Hawaii Management Partners, said he is looking forward to quizzing the participants and will be keeping an eye out for potential investments that could be based in Hawaii.
"As long as it's an absolutely fundable deal that's all that matters," Richardson said.
The students will be presenting a range of business ideas.
For example, the team from the Chinese University of Hong Kong wants to establish an online tutoring program that takes advantage of the intense competition among secondary students to secure a place at a university.
Of the 400,000 high school students in Hong Kong, about 70,000 take university entrance exams every year. Because competition is fierce, parents will spend up to $400 a month to hire tutors for their children, team member Martin Yip said.
"With such intense competition for space at university, we think the business potential is great," Yip said. "Even if we only accessed 1 percent of the Hong Kong market, we would break even."
Apart from accessing study materials needed for the examination, students can ask questions of a tutor and also interact with other students via the Internet.
The team believes its idea could eventually be adapted worldwide, but it is concentrating on gaining access to the greater China market. They say they will be ready to launch the product in six to nine months in three basic areas of math, English and Chinese. While they want to run the business themselves, they are hopeful an investor will see the potential of their idea.
Students from the Indian School of Business in Hyderabad, India, are hoping that their idea for a chain of fresh juice and nutritional drink bars will catch fire with Indian consumers, especially the younger generation.
With no similar competition yet established in India, the students believe they have picked a winner and have already gotten some interest from venture capitalists.
"The typical place for juices is an outdoor market and that can be unhygienic," said team member Anuj Kumar Rustagi.
The idea is to start in health clubs in India's large cities such as New Delhi and Bombay and expand from there, Rustagi said.
Hawaii's entrants into the competition, Dale Brannon and John Ferrari, believe their business idea known as CuriosiT will revolutionize education.
The company will design and build customized online courses from a selection of educational components. With distance learning now becoming a part of many university curriculums, Ferrari said the idea would save universities and students a substantial amount of money.
"Instead of a university spending of money to build a course, they can choose the pieces they want, we'll assemble them into customized solutions and deliver," Ferrari said. "The university won't have to deal with 15 different vendors."
The company will also provide yearly updates for programs that need updating.
"In the budget-cutting climate of today, a solution like this makes sense," Ferrari said. "My goal is one day there would be no more textbooks."
The Moot Corp. competition, relatively new in Asia, has been hosted in Hong Kong since its inception. But this year, the director of the College of Business's Pacific Asian Management Institute, Shirley Daniel, secured the event for Hawaii for the first time.
At the kick-off reception for the teams last night at Kapiolani Community College, organizers not only emphasized what hosting such a recognized international event meant for Hawaii, but also the impact it could have on participants lives.
"This week's final can be a career- and a life-changing event that you'll remember always," said UH Business School dean David McLain.