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Written by: Sindhu Palaniappan
The Vanguard sat down with Bentley Entrepreneurship Society (BES) President Zakary Ewen, an Economics and Finance major and Global Sustainability liberal studies major, in order to learn more about BES.
Tell us about BES
BES was founded relatively recently in 2002, which makes it a fairly young organization. Our goal is to serve as a forum for all Bentley students in entrepreneurship, This entails owning businesses or working for a startup, any entrepreneurial environment.
What kind of events does BES run?
Current entrepreneurs come in to speak to those interested in the field. We just held our Pitch Party event, which continues to be successful. Last year we attended a national conference in Chicago, where we met with other groups similar to ours interested in the entrepreneurial field. Aside from this, we also offer other speaking events and movie screenings; we aren’t limited in what we offer.
Are you affiliated with any other groups on campus?
We do co-host events. For example, last semester we worked closely with the Bentley Marketing Association for Dart Boston. Dart Boston is an event that tours Boston and also does live podcasts, interviewing entrepreneurs in their twenties.
Tell us more about your recent Pitch Party
It was an elevator pitch competition held on April 13th, in the Wilder Pavilion. For an entrepreneur, an elevator pitch is a one to three minute speech where an entrepreneur pitches his or her business idea and plan to potential investors. This is an annual competition held every spring. Competitors usually come to network with the venture capitalists and angel investors, but this time BES provided more incentive. We fundraised for this event, based on our family and friend network, and raised $1,000 to be given away in prizes.
Thirteen students presented in all, representing Bentley and Northeastern. There was also interest amongst Bryant University and Boston University students. As for our five judges, we hosted two venture capitalists from Bain Capital Ventures and Commonwealth Capital Ventures, two BES founding members, and a Bentley University Faculty Chair who has founded multiple biotechnology firms. The contest was based on the quality of the actual pitch and the business itself that was being sold. The students were given a rough outline to follow, but they came up with most of it.
They were given one to three minutes to talk, and then five minutes to answer questions.
First place and a $600 prize went to Raymer Maguire for his Boston Designated Driver service.
Second place and a $300 prize went to Elizabeth Horgan and Richard Pruitt of Northeastern for their ScriptBot Company, one that allows students to share media files easily with college applications.
Third place and a $100 prize went to Michael Gaudion for his idea of ChocoArt USA, a company that produces detailed, 3-D chocolate art.
The event is held every spring and students are encouraged to attend, BES aims to beat their $1,000 fundraising mark next year!
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