New Venture Seed Grants were recently awarded to students with aspirations to start new social, economic and/or commercial ventures.  The seed grant competition, which requires applicants to submit an outline of the proposed project, encourages students to think innovatively about how they can use their disciplinary interests to create value and make a difference.  Below is a list of winners for Spring 2010.

Bubbles.  White Phoenix Research Group LLC is a company started by freshmen Marco Banfi and James Rex targeting major motion picture production companies and independent film studios with a great idea -- Bubbles. Bubbles is a way for viewers to interact with film trailers in a way that will provide specific audience-oriented research data to the production companies. These companies can then evaluate their audience so that they can create successful products and market them strategically.

CampusCakes is a service that connects parents to their university students on birthdays and other special occasions. Launched in February 2010, the venture offers a variety of baked goods, personalized cakes and party materials that parents can order to have hand delivered to their child’s room. Juniors Christopher Class, Stacey Graf, Matthew Kaden and David Motta have combined forces to provide Wake parents a convenient way to bridge the difficult gap between home and school. CampusCakes practices target marketing by sending mailers out to parents during their child’s birthday month.

Campus Chooser.  Senior Michael Marks and junior Swayze Smartt were awarded a seed grant for their Campus Chooser company proposal. Campus Chooser will offer an iPhone application that serves as a virtual campus tour and statistical database of numerous universities, colleges and potentially private high schools. Their prototype application, tentatively named “Wake Tour,” features building descriptions, pictures and historical facts overlaid atop of a satellite map of the Reynolda Campus. Campus Chooser wishes to take advantage of the growing mobile computing service industry to offer perspective students a useful tool in comparing and navigating campuses.

Campus Connect. Sophomore Vincent Cerniglia was awarded a new venture seed grant for his Campus Connect iphone application idea. Cerniglia aims to make life on a college campus simpler by offering an application that will allow users to search school directories, access campus activity calendars, learn about athletic programs, navigate around campus and more. Cerniglia plans on creating a protoype application for the Wake Forest campus and then market his idea at other universities for a profit.

E-Paper Global.  The current healthcare system suffers from a severe lack of organization in terms of data collection and storage processes. Waste, fraud, abuse, simple human error and malpractice are just a few symptoms caused by the lack of sophisticated, centralized and smart healthcare information technology. Inspired by these problems, personal experiences and by health policy studies on the campus of Wake Forest, returning student Gavin Smith came up with the idea for E-Paper Global. The venture seeks to find ways to combine new and existing technologies for distribution and simplification of health information delivery in real time.

Feisty Goat Coffee Roasters.  Juniors JT Peifer and Kari Heuer recently launched Feisty Goat Coffee Roasters, an on-campus coffee roasting business that offers high quality, freshly roasted coffee at an affordable price and hand delivered to anywhere on campus. The pair aims to increase their output, inventory and advertising with the seed grant funds so that their business can continue to grow and they can get more high quality coffee into cups on campus.  Feisty Goat Coffee Roasters was recently featured on Windows on Wake Forest.  Click here to read the story.

Freedom Bonds is a business concept by junior Patrick Stykos aimed at decreasing the number of misdemeanor offenders wasting tax payers money while waiting in county jails for trials. Freedom Bonds will offer low yield bail bonds that customers can pay off in small incremental payments.  Stykos plans to use his grant money to research the current laws and pay for the initial licensing fees and that will eventually launch his venture in North Carolina or New York.

Life’s New Chapter is a venture by freshman Thomas Chang meant to provide prospective students and their parents a greater insight into potential universities by allowing them to learn from current students. Life’s New Chapter will publish a yearly booklet  with essays on a variety of college related topics. Chang plans to use his new venture seed grant funds to run essay contests with monetary awards at a sampling of colleges. Once he has collected content, Chang will organize the booklet with sections from each school. The booklet will provide a true view of a school’s atmosphere, advantages and weaknesses, so that perspective students won’t have to sift through the biased marketing materials provided directly by institutions.

Simply Megan Jewelry.  Freshman Megan Van Buren started Simply Megan Jewelry five years ago, selling hand-crafted jewelry pieces to women at trade and craft shows. Van Buren specializes in unique necklaces, bracelets, earrings and rings made with gemstones, sterling silver, Venetian glass, Swarovski crystals, cane glass, freshwater pearls and more. Recently, Van Buren detected a trend among her customers, a desire for unique, ethnic looking styles that incorporate a social mission. Van Buren plans to address this need by using her new venture seed grant funding to purchase ethnic beads and materials to diversify her Simply Megan Jewelry designs.

Summer Rentals is a jet-ski rental business located on Lake Gaston in North Carolina/Virginia run by sophomore Brad Silver. Silver has run the business, that was started by his sister, for the past two years. Summer Rentals provides jet-ski rental services to the Lake Gaston area since 2004 and is now trying to expand the business to match growing demand. Summer Rentals stands apart from its competitors by delivering the jet-ski rentals to any rental home or campsite on the lake and by offering the lowest prices for multi-day rentals. Silver plans to use the seed grant money to purchase the new apple iPad so that he can process credit cards, and keep up with company files and paperwork while on the go.

Virginia Isabelle is a clothing line started by freshman Virginia Ruane. The line consists of cotton dresses, tops, skirts and jackets targeted to young women. The cloth used in constructing these garments will contain the colors of various Southern schools meaning that Virgina Isabelle pieces will be perfect for sporting events! Ruane has seen a huge potential market for her pieces, so she aims to get them into the hands of a few local boutiques soon and then expand using the sales at her first boutiques as market research to encourage more stores to carry her line.

The Think Alive Foundation is a non-profit organization dedicated to providing financial means to disabled and ambitious young adults so that they can pursue their dreams in whatever their hearts desire -- athletics, entrepreneurship ventures, music careers, university scholarships and more. The foundation was recently started by freshmen Tim Enfield who plans to use his new venture seed grant to fund his new website and create promotion materials so that he can spend his summer fundraising. http://thinkalive.org/

 Wear to Win.  As a teenaged golfer, Laura Ormsom recognized a need for fashionable female golf clothing. And so, with the help of the entrepreneurship department, Ormsom launched her business in May of 2007. Since then, Ormsom has been selling her products at tournaments and online. Ormsom plans on using the seed grant funding to aid in promotion and advertising campaigns.  She will work to further the business full time upon her graduation in May. http://www.weartowin.com/