Drucker School Hosts 20th-annual Henry R. Kravis Concept Plan Competition

Winners were announced at the 20th annual Henry R. Kravis Plan Competition Awards hosted by CGU’s Peter F. Drucker and Masatoshi Ito School of Management on April 23, 2010.

Teams composed of students and alumni from all the Claremont Colleges were invited to participate, submitting a business concept plan that demonstrates their true promise as entrepreneurs. This year, six finalists were named, with SwoopThat, LLC taking first place honors and $4,500.

According to SwoopThat, LLC’s developers – Jonathan Simkin (Harvey Mudd College (HMC), Kyle Casella (Claremont McKenna College (CMC), Matt Kurtis (HMC), and Alex Kurtis (HMC) – the company allows small “mom and pop” shops to compete with big companies in on-line searches: “it allows you to compare prices between online merchants and stores near you.”

The winning plans were chosen by a panel of esteemed judges, including Jay Prag (clinical associate professor and EMP academic director at the Drucker School); John Tillquist (president of the Inland Empire Network of Tech Coast Angels, Inc.); and Harvey Mudd College alumnus Surya Jayaweera (founder and president of WolfeTech Corporation). The event was hosted by Jim Mills, visiting professor of finance and co-director of the Financial Engineering Program at the Drucker School.

The other five finalists, in order of how they finished were SPRINGO with team members Eric Scott (CMC) and Erik Hansell (CMC); CollegeMatchers, Inc. with Daniel Black (CMC), Andrew Oetting (CMC), and Elliot Godzich (CMC); EcOptimus with Nick Crossman (CGU), Becky Bakkars (CGU), Simone Fine (Pitzer College), and Lindon Pronto (Pitzer College); Twelth Knight: The Democratization of Apparel with Antoine Grant (CMC), Chris Davis (CMC), and Daniel Goodwin (HMC); and A Different Cup with Arye Bamehama (Pomona College).

The competition was funded by and honors Henry R. Kravis, an internationally recognized entrepreneur and founding member of CGU’s Board of Visitors.