NC State entrepreneur beats out teams from London School of Economics, Michigan at NeXt Generation Entrepreneur Forum in Monaco

Speakers included Ron Posner, former CEO of the Peter Norton Company (Norton Antivirus) and current venture capitalist; Candace Johnson who has been called one of the most powerful Business women in Europe by CNN and Time Magazine, and who founded Teleport Europe and Europe Online; Alan Barrell, holder of the Queen’s Award for Enterprise Promotion and Professor of Enterpreneurship at Cambridge; and Walter de Brouwer, the founder of Star Labs in Brussels, who has been called a serial entrepreneur by the Wall Street Journal.

Ennette Kemp, a current undergraduate at North Carolina State University in the United States won the Business Plan Competition. The competition included 18 teams representing 11 different nationalities with the winner having survived two rounds and a grueling 15 minute question and answer session before a panel of judges from the US, Thailand, India, and England.

Two other business plan participants have formerly entered into negotiations for funding from the NGEF Investment Fund participants – Monaqua is a Monaco based venture which was seeking funding to develop a prototype for a desalination system, aimed at helping communities in sub Saharan Africa increase their supply of safe drinking water and Unibooks.org a web based system for used text books developed by a team from the London School of Economics.

This years forum was held at the Monte Carlo Bay Resort. "The location, in the heart of Europe was ideal" said Professor Barrell. " And the University of Monaco did an exceptional job of organizing this event. It was a fantastic networking opportunity - there were many creative ideas floating around - and more than a few of them have an excellent chance at really taking off."

The International University of Monaco’s MBA program is accredited by the Associate of MBA’s (AMBA) and has been ranked for three consecutive years as one of the top MBA program globally by the Economist Magazines Intelligence Unit.