Maryland awards $10,000 to winners

The University of Maryland’s Dingman Center for Entrepreneurship at the Robert H Smith School of Business awarded $10,000 to winners of the 2012 China Business Plan Competition.

In partnership with the Guanghua School of Management at Peking University in Beijing and including Chinese teams from Tianjin and Zhejiang Universities as well as the Technion, which is the Israel Institute of Technology, the top prize went to EWalking.

The plan by a team from Zhejiang University is for an electronic cane designed for the visually impaired which detects and alarms obstacles in three dimensions. The Live-a-betes team from University of Maryland came second with a plan for a educational learning platform for diabetics, pre-diabetics, and caretakers.

Hongbin Cai, dean of Guanghua School of Management, said: "This competition is a key component in fostering awareness of innovation and entrepreneurship and we hope that all participating student teams benefit immensely from this opportunity."

G "Anand" Anandalingam, dean of the Robert H Smith School of Business, added: "We are grateful to the Guanghua School of Management (Peking University) for partnering with us on the competition and sending students to our programs in the US and Israel, which are the cornerstone to a top-tier international business education."

Each year the Smith School brings students to Israel and China and brings students from both those locations to the US. Smith also brings Israelis to China and Chinese students to Israel.

Asher Epstein, managing director of the Dingman Center for Entrepreneurship, said: "Our unique global triangle promotes economic growth by linking three institutions in separate nations defined by their economic strengths: top tier US management, which is our MBA students; partnering with high-level global innovation, which is what we’ve found in Israel; and focused on the best markets in the world, which are in China."