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Event Scheduling Software Bags Top Technopreneur Prize
Computer software to
minimise the time taken to schedule events garnered the top prize at the
second Startup@Singapore, a national techno-venture business plan
competition. Comprising NUS lecturer Dr Martin Henz, NUS undergraduate
Sevugan Alagappan and Tobias Muller, the NUS School of Computing team
which called itself "FriarTuck" walked away with $40,000 for
its nifty software.
The winning entry uses
advanced constraint programming to reduce drastically the time for event
scheduling, eg. match scheduling for a sports tournament may take only
one minute.
Said Dr Henz,
"We're happy that our entry was chosen as the best business plan.
The task ahead of us now is to put the plan into practice and develop a
great business." The winning team has already set up a start-up
company (called FriarTuck, of course) to develop and market
constraint-based event scheduling services and solutions.
The Startup@Singapore
competition is organised by NUS' Centre for Management of Innovation and
Technopreneurship and supported by the Economic Development Board. The
goal of the competition is to encourage technology intensive start-ups
by helping participating teams to turn an idea into a business.
Participants are given training and hands-on guidance in
entrepreneurship in a boot camp. This year, 69 teams submitted their
business plans at the end of the boot camp. Only 6 made it to the
finals.
For more information about Start-up@Singapore, refer
to http://www.nus.edu.sg/start-up/singapore/index.html.
NUS News
Text: Office of Corporate Communications, National University of
Singapore
Date: 21 May 2001
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