20 K Competition

Two Female Business Plan Competition 2011 Winners

Students Svenja Arens, Wiebke Mueller and Ankie Titulaer together won € 20,000 in the Female Business Plan Competition 2011. They share the prize with two business plans: Svenja Arens and Wiebke Mueller wrote a business plan for Chillasole retractable ballerina shoes for sale in the social scene for women with sore feet. Ankie Titulaer won with her project InMotion, an innovative concept in music artist management and marketing platform. The winners beat four other finalists during the finale on May 13. The prize amount is made available by the City of Maastricht. The competition started in September 2010 with 43 teams of students and alumni.

During the final, part of the Maastricht Week of Entrepreneurship, the finalists pitched their idea in front of an audience of approximately 200 guests. The jury of five women from the academic or business world, eventually split the award between the two winners. Both business plans were already rewarded in the previous rounds: Ankie Titulaer won the first round and Chillasole was declared the winner of round two.

The Female Business Plan Competition was created in 2009 by the Maastricht Centre for Entrepreneurship to promote female entrepreneurship in higher education. Students, staff and alumni of all Higher Educational Institutions in Limburg can join the competition. During the competition the participants are coached in developing their plans and encouraged to find investors.

In the first round, participants had an ultra-short description of their proposal “on the back of a beer mat. ” The proposal by Ankie Titulaer received in this round 500. The second round consisted of writing a feasibility study of up to seven pages. The five best candidates were invited in February to present their findings to the jury, for which Chillasole was rewarded with 1,000 euros. Today the third round ended with the final. All participants wrote a business plan for this, for which they were given two months time. Five business plans are selected by the jury for the final pitch, the sixth candidate received a wild card based on public voting via the Internet.

The other finalists were Charanaya Chidambaram with Adda (cultural café to promote interaction between different nationalities), Leyla Hamzei & Lisa Berding with Be Your Flag (sports fanwear for women), Anja Morbach & Friedhelm Rosenow with Wine Online (wine site focused on German territory). The wild card went to Sara Rodriguez & Pawel Maciulewski with CheckIt (mobile application for student residences).