Dana Cita wins First Wharton Social Impact Prize with an Educational Lending Platform to Help Indonesian Students Pay for School
PHILADELPHIA, Pa., May 5, 2014–The Wharton School of the University of Pennsylvania announced that student team Slidejoy won the $30,000 Perlman Grand Prize of the 2014 Wharton Business Plan Competition (http://bpc.wharton.upenn.edu). The prize was awarded at the Wharton School’s annual Venture Finals on May 1, 2014, where student Finalists received more than $125,000 in combined cash prizes and in-kind legal/accounting services.
Slidejoy is an intelligent Android app that pays users to view beautifully designed ads every time they unlock their phones. Sanghoon Kwak G’14/WG’14, Jaeho Chung, alumnus, Robert Seo WG’12, explained that over time Slidejoy learns the preferences of a user based off of previous behaviors during different times of day and at different locations and curates a more profitable and relevant user experience. Users are paid between $5-$15 per month for using Slidejoy.
In the three months since the app has launched, Slidejoy has achieved great success, with over 20,000 app downloads and over 26 million ad impressions delivered. Initial advertisers and merchants include Groupon, Best Buy, Adidas, J. Crew, and Macy’s. Slidejoy is currently on available only to Android smartphone users.
The Venture Finals, which is the year-long Wharton BPC’s culminating event, attracted over 300 venture capitalists, business leaders, faculty members and students. This year the competition had a record-setting 181 venture concepts submitted, with 492 individual participants from across 9 Schools at the University of Pennsylvania. While the Venture Finals judges deliberated the top three prizes, the “Great Eight” Finalist teams competed for the Michelson People’s Choice Award which allowed the audience of hundreds to vote for their favorite elevator pitch. The crowd favorite was PhaseOptics, which walked away with a $3,000 prize.
New in 2014 was the Wharton Social Impact Prize, $10,000 awarded to the Semifinalist team with the best example of social impact integrated into their business plan. The inaugural winner of the Wharton Social Impact Prize was Susli Lie WG’14 team leader of Dana Cita. Dana Cita means “Aspiration Fund” in Indonesian, and this educational lending venture aims to empower Indonesian youth by providing loans to aspiring students, as well as connecting them to future careers.
The 2014 Wharton Business Plan Competition winners are:
• Perlman Grand Prize: $30,000 to Slidejoy
• Second Prize: $15,000 to PhaseOptics
• Third Prize: $10,000 to VeryApt
• Wharton Social Impact Prize: $10,000 to Dana Cita
• Gloeckner Undergraduate Award: $10,000 for the highest ranking Wharton undergraduate team to Black Box Denim
• Michelson People’s Choice Award: $3,000 to PhaseOptics
• Committee Award for Most Disruptive Company: $1,000 to Senvol
• Committee Award for Best Use of Technology: $1,000 to Identified Technologies
• Committee Award for Committee’s Choice: $1,000 to Command Health
Over the years, the Wharton Business Plan Competition, which is open to any University of Pennsylvania student and managed by Wharton Entrepreneurship, has seen numerous student teams go on to become successful businesses. Previous participants in the Competition include ventures such as eyeglass phenom Warby Parker, dominant Brazilian baby e-commerce site Baby.com.br, and drug R&D company Integral Molecular.
Venture Finals WBPC judges were:
• David Cohen (PAR’14/PAR’16/PAR’17), CEO, Chief Investment Officer and Co-founder, Karlin Asset Management, Inc.
• Doug Given, MD (WG’93), Advisor, Bay City Capital
• Marc Magliacano (W’96), Partner, Catterton Partners
• Richard Perlman (W’68), Founder & Executive Chairman, ExamWorks Group, Inc.
• Kathryn Stewart (WG’88/PAR’12/PAR’17), Managing Director, J. Moore Partners
Note: WG=MBA alum; W=Undergraduate Wharton alum; PAR=Penn parent
About the Wharton School and Wharton Entrepreneurship
In 1973, The Wharton School became the first school to develop a fully integrated curriculum of entrepreneurial studies. Today Wharton, through Wharton Entrepreneurship (http://entrepreneurship.wharton.upenn.edu/), supports and seeds innovation and entrepreneurship globally through teaching, research and outreach to a range of organizations through its many programs, initiatives and research centers. At the same time, Wharton students and alumni are helping to build entrepreneurial enterprises around the world and impacting virtually every industry. For more information on the Wharton Business Plan Competition, go to: http://bpc.wharton.upenn.edu.
The Wharton School of the University of Pennsylvania — founded in 1881 as the first collegiate business school — is recognized globally for intellectual leadership and ongoing innovation across every major discipline of business education. The most comprehensive source of business knowledge in the world, Wharton bridges research and practice through its broad engagement with the global business community. The School has 5,000 undergraduate, MBA, executive MBA, and doctoral students; more than 9,000 annual participants in executive education programs; and an alumni network of 92,000 graduates.