Spirit of Entrepreneurship

TechKnowledge Point Corp., founded by David Newton, Westmont professor of entrepreneurial finance, will hold the Spirit of Entrepreneurship and Enterprise Development (SEED) business plan competition and awards luncheon Feb. 20-21 at Fess Parker’s Doubletree Resort.

The final competitions, which are free and open to the public, will be 8:30-11:30 a.m. Feb. 21 in the resort conference center.

Winners will be announced after the speaker, Ed Lee, founder of Wahoos Fish Tacos, at the awards luncheon at noon in the Ronald Reagan Room. The luncheon is open to members of the media.

The first place venture team will receive $10,000 plus a Notebook PC and start-up office equipment. Second place will receive $5,000 and $2,500 goes to third place.

The “Elite-8” semi-finalists of the collegiate entrepreneurship business plan competition who will present their ventures Feb. 20 are: Extreme Drive Adventures, University of Colorado; Flexon Solutions, University of Iowa; Fuel Services Corp., Wake Forest University; Inkwell Publishers, University of Louisville; Inspirae Healthcare, University of Florida; Leading Lazonics, University of Arizona; Medfo-Link, Columbia Business School; and ThruSkin Technologies, University of Georgia.

The “Final-4” will be announced Friday evening.

Rieva Lesonsky, editorial director at Entrepreneur magazine, and Ali Velshi, host of “Your Money” on CNN-FN also will speak at events for the competitors.

The panel judging the “final 4” competition consists of: Jim Haslem, Partner, Sheppard-Mullin; Kenneth Shein, President, Prime Energy Partners; Kevin Mills, Entrepreneur; Jeff Carmody, Principal, Agility Capital; and Jason Spievak, CFO, CallWave.

For more information, contact Jay Lorentzen at (805) 965-3058 or e-mail Jay@techknowledgepoint.com.