Thursday, March 02, 2006

Biojet Business Plan Wins Competition


News of a new development in jet biofuel has been buzzing all around the Sustainable Blogosphere, but you all know I have a soft spot for college students doing great (and green) things. From The Dakota Student Online:
[University of North Dakota] students Nick Cox and Marko Jukic may be studying two different areas, but the two have seamlessly blended Nick's background in entrepreneurship and Marko's background in chemical engineering to form a business plan for a biojet fuel for GreenFlight, LLC.

The pair won Friday's championship round in the Sustainable Venturing Business Plan Competition at the University of Colorado at Boulder. The two UND students formed one of the eight teams chosen to compete in the competition....

The two were extremely excited when they won first place.

"We kept our calm for the pictures plus about five seconds," Jukic said. He and Cox added that they were presented with an oversize fake check to represent their prize money of $12,500. The two brought it home with them from Boulder, carrying it through security and X-rays at the Denver Airport.

"We basically paraded it around for a day and a half," Jukic said.

In addition to the prize money, they were invited to speak at the National Renewable Energy Laboratory's Industry Growth Forum in November. The two plan to continue attending business plan competition with the hopes of making it to Moot Corps, the "Super Bowl" of business plan competition according to Cox.

Much of their prize money will go toward their business, but some will also go to those who helped the two along the way to their competition. They hope to hire additional employees once their business is up and running one day.
Congratulations to Nick and Marko! For more thoughts on the fuel itself, as well as its implications for the airline industry, check out Jamais' post at WorldChanging.

Categories: , , , , , , ,