Ernst & Young Entrepreneur of the Year 2009

Brett Hurt, Wharton alum and co-founder and CEO of customer review management service Bazaarvoice, has been named an Ernst & Young Entrepreneur of the Year 2009 Winner, the world’s most prestigious business award for entrepreneurs. Read more about Hurt here.

Winning Innovation

Christian Terwiesch and Karl Ulrich, Operations and Information Management professors at The Wharton School, are co-authors of new book Innovation Tournaments, a "great read for anyone who is looking to develop a process to manage innovation... filled with real-world case studies and examples of approaches that will be beneficial to any practitioners who have the task of driving successful innovation..." Find out more here.

Rapping About Business

RJMetrics is a Business Intelligence Dashboard for database-driven websites used by professionals to monitor key business metrics and trends. RJMetrics is also an aspiring rap duo. The group recently released a Business Intelligence Rap Video which also contains advice for tech startups. Check it out here.

Entrepreneur offers Build a Website column

Entrepreneur Magazine has just added a Build a Website column, which focuses on Web site management, usability and design. Check out the first topic "Start a Blog For Your Business" in the May issue here.

Super Angel Status

Alumni venture capital firm First Round Capital has become the country's most active seed-stage investor, according to BusinessWeek. Among other "super angels" such as Baseline Ventures and Felicis Ventures, First Round is funding startups and entrepreneurs at a time when large VC firms are holding back. Read more here.

Reinvention Success

Recently featured on Inc., Flocabulary, a study-guide publisher that aimed to teach history through hip-hop, had a great idea, but no business. Read their story about how UPenn graduate Harrison and Tufts graduate Rappaport reinvented themselves, began to grow, and now have their study-guides used in 100 school districts.

"Get It Started!"

This month's stories focus on the Wharton Business Plan Competition, with a feature on winner NIR Diagnostics and a video on the Venture Finals 2009, and an interview with the co-authors, Wharton professor of innovation and entrepreneurship Ian MacMillan and Columbia Business School professor Rita Gunther McGrath, of their new book Discovery-Driven Growth: A Breakthrough Process to Reduce Risk and Seize Opportunity. Check out the newsletter here.

What Elon Musk Thinks

Paypal founder and Tesla Motors CEO Elon Musk speaks about electric cars, hybrids, the Tesla and the mysterious ways of Detroit in the first of a two-part Knowledge@Wharton and Wharton Entrepreneurial Programs podcast series "Great Companies Are Built on Great Products". Listen to the podcast here.

Micro-financing, On Stage?

"Mamma Mia!" producer Phylidda Lloyd is developing a feature project inspired by Wharton MBA Commencement speaker Muhammad Yunus' revolutionary concept of micro-financing. Winning the Nobel Peace Prize in 2006, Yunus' pioneered the use of micro-loans to people in poor countries. Read more about the project here.

Latin America Sees Private Equity and Venture Capital Expansion

Lauder Institute students recently co-authored a groundbreaking report that presents new data and trends of private equity and venture capital in Latin America. Read more about the findings here.

Tickets Take The Leap

TicketLeap has officially launched TicketLeap Anywhere, the first full-service box office that is entirely web-based. The new ticketing service includes ticket barcode scanning, the ability for customers to choose an exact seat, and support for venue customization. Check out the Demo video here.

TechnicallyPhilly Tells All

TechnicallyPhilly has filled the Philadelphia technology community gap with a recently launched blog that publishes daily with updates, profiles, reviews, and listings. Read their play-by-play account of the Venture Finals of the Wharton Business Plan Competition where NIR Diagnostics, one of eight competing groups, came away with the Grand Prize and the People's Choice Award here.

Wharton Business Plan Competition Winners Announced

Student team NIR Diagnostics, whose patented “InfraVue” device detects wound healing problems faster and more accurately than current approaches, won the $20,000 Michelson Grand Prize of the 2009 Wharton Business Plan Competition at this year’s Venture Finals, the culminating event of the year-long Competition, which attracted nearly three hundred venture capitalists, business leaders, faculty and students. Read more here.