George Washington University Business Plan Competition

History&Mission

The GW $50,000 Business Plan Competition was launched in 2009 thanks to a generous grant from Richard and Annette Scott.  The competition was created to give students , faculty and alumni a real world experiential learning opportunity in entrepreneurship.  We also aim to foster an entrepreneurial climate at GW and allow business plan competition winners to actually launch and operate their ventures while maintaining complete control of their business through the issuance of non-equity (for the university) based grants as prize money.

In order to fufil our mission, the following team works together throughout the year to coordinate workshops, networking events, guest lecturers and the programming of the final business plan competition event itself:

Staff

John Rollins,
Director of GW Business Plan Competition

Rollins has taught the undergraduate course in Entrepreneurship/Small Business Management at The George Washington University School of Business since 2001.

Prior to GW, he served as CEO, chairman, and founder of AZTECH Software Corporation, an information technology firm headquartered in the Washington, D.C. area.  The company, which specializes in software and related services for non-profit membership associations, was acquired in 2000 by Gomembers, Inc.  During Rollins’s 30 years as CEO, he led the company from a three-person start-up to the leading provider of software to associations nationally.  He guided the company through six major product transformations beginning in 1970 when punch cards were used for batch processing on IBM mainframe systems.  The sixth transformation integrated the company’s Windows software (running client/server) with the Internet for web-based e-commerce.  The company’s product line grew to more than 50 integrated software modules with more than 700 organizations served from Boston to Honolulu.

Rollins has also been involved as a founder and board member of other information technology start-ups over the past two decades.  He served for 10 years on the Board of Directors of the Information Technology Association of America where he was a member for 20 years.  Rollins currently serves on the boards of Georgetown University Hospital, the National Park Trust, Hyde Leadership Public Charter School, the George Washington University School of Business, and StreamCenter, Inc.

Rollins holds a B.A. degree from Dartmouth and an M.B.A. from Stanford.

Jim Chung,
Director of GW Office of Entrepreneurship

Jim Chung is the director of the GW Office of Entrepreneurship, where he is responsible for entrepreneurship programs and technology transfer. As the director of the Mtech VentureAccelerator at the University of Maryland before joining GW, Jim worked with faculty and students there to launch startup companies based on University of Maryland technology. Prior to that, he served as the director of new business development at the Corporate Executive Board, and helped establish the company’s mergers and acquisitions capabilities. He also served as vice president at Cherington Capital (now Intervale Capital), a middle market private equity firm. He started his private sector career as an early stage venture capital investor, most recently at incTANK Ventures, where he was the managing director. Before becoming an investor, Jim was an academic researcher studying how business, government, and academia work together to create new innovations in high technology industries. He was a research fellow at MIT (Security Studies Program), Harvard (Center for Science and International Affairs), the University of Tokyo (Fulbright Fellow), and the Korea Advanced Institute of Science and Technology (NSF Fellow). He received his BA and MA from Stanford University, and was a PhD candidate at MIT.

Kevin May,
Assistant Director of GW Business Plan Competition

Kevin is a doctoral fellow at The George Washington University School of Business in the Department of Management, focusing on Entrepreneurship.  In addition to his academic persuits, he also brings with him significant prior entrepreneurial experience as founder and president of a Washington DC area new media strategy consulting firm, a former founding team member and partner (employee #2) of a top 25 Washington DC area interactive design agency and as an early stage eDiscovery consultant for Navigant Consulting durring the nascency of that industry.

Denitsa Rakitska,
Executive Associate of GW Office of Entrepreneurship

Denitsa Rakitska is the Executive Associate at the GW Office of Entrepreneurship, where she facilitates the creation and management of various entrepreneurship programs and events. Prior to joining the Office of Entrepreneurship, Denitsa graduated from the George Washington University with a degree in International Affairs/International Economics.