The fifteenth annual SESI Midwestern Regional Entrepreneurship Conference was held in the EMU Student Center on Friday.
The conference was presented by the Collegiate Entrepreneurs Organization and was focused on reinventing Michigan, utilizing the entrepreneurial spirit.
In 2009 EMU received $200,000 from the estate of Catherin Sesi to endow the annual conference.
The conference featured speakers from a variety of businesses and organizations, broken down into two breakout sessions with a keynote presentation during breakfast and another during lunch.
The breakfast keynote speaker was Amy Cell from the Michigan Economic Development Corporation.
The first breakout session featured Chalres Senteio, an entrepreneur in health care and consulting; Gauri
Thergonkar from Zingtrain; and Pat Muldoon, vice president of product development engineering for Venchurs Vehicle Systems.
The second session included Zach Wigal, founder of Gamers Outreach Foundation; Kentaro Ray, founder of Kentaro SEO Marketing; and Bilal Saeed and Tim Adkins, founders of Pakmode Media and Marketing.
The lunch keynote was delivered by Mike Lorenc, Google manager of Dedicated Client Services.
Each speaker had a topic within the main theme of re-inventing Michigan.
After the two breakout sessions and the keynote discussion by Lorenc, there was a business plan competition funded by Robert J. Skandalaris.
The Center for Entrepreneurship helps the CEO Club run the event but allows the club to do most of the decision making in regard to speakers. Some speakers were EMU alumni, and all were local.
Paul Nucci is the program communications coordinator for the Center for Entrepreneurship and helped organize the competition.
“While the conference is in its 15th year, the competition is only in its fifth year,” he said.
The competition is divided into high school and college categories; the top three contestants in each division win cash prizes. This year first place won $1000, second took $750 and third took $500.
The projects are judged based on the idea, its creativity and its set up. The projects are then judged internally until only finalists are left, which are then judged at the conference.
“This a student-run contest, and the center supports the CEO Club. The students go out and find the speakers,” Nucci said.
In the college portion of the contest EMU student Jeremy Kopanisaz took first, University of Michigan student
Sean Simpson took second and EMU’s Matt Thomas took third.
Saline High School student Caitlin Sisken won the high school portion of the contest. Emily Bearman from Ypsilanti High School took second place and Chelsea Young from Ann Arbor Huron took third.
