Business Plan Competition Winners Ring NASDAQ Closing Bell
On August 8, the grand-prize winning team from the Wharton Business Plan Competition (WBPC) rang the closing bell at the NASDAQ Stock Market in New York. It was the second year in a row that the competition winners were honored in this way. The SmartMotion Technologies team of Rahul Kothari, WG’06, Howard Katzenberg, WG’06, Kevin Galloway, a Penn Engineering PhD candidate, and Rodrigo Alvarez, a Penn alumnus, were welcomed by members of the Wharton Alumni Club of New York and Wharton Entrepreneurial Programs, which runs the competition.
Using the name MuscleMorph, the team had impressed WBPC judges with its plan to market a medical device that matches biological muscle movement. Global Family Alliance Partners with Singapore Management University for Research The Wharton Global Family Alliance (Wharton GFA) joined with Singapore Management University (SMU) to develop high-level research, thought leadership, and a major curriculum of study related to family business governance, wealth management, and philanthropy.
With its previously announced partnerships with IESE Business School, Instituto de la Empressa Familiar and SDA Bocconi School of Management, Wharton GFA now has research capabilities on three continents — North America, Asia, and Europe — for its studies of family business issues. SMU is Singapore’s third university, founded in 2000, with collaboration from Wharton, to offer undergraduate business education, specialized graduate programs, and executive education in Asia. The two institutions already conduct joint research under the umbrella of the Wharton-SMU Research Center.
Penn’s Health Economics Exec Ed Programs Now Part of Wharton
Executive education programs offered by the Leonard Davis Institute of Health Economics (LDI) will now reside in Wharton Executive Education. Until now, both Wharton Executive Education and LDI have served clients in the health care industry independently.
LDI, the University of Pennsylvania’s center for health services research, health policy, and health care management executive education, is a long-standing formal cooperative venture among Wharton, Penn’s health care schools, Annenberg, and the Children’s Hospital of Philadelphia. This reorganization will formalize the collaborative relationship by clustering the University’s health care executive education expertise within the Wharton Executive Education structure.
Wharton Launches Long-Term Leadership Development Program for Dubai World
Wharton Executive Education has begun a three-year partnership with Dubai World to launch the Dubai Leaders Program, a leadership development initiative designed to build a corps of leaders within Dubai World. The executive development program will bring up to 135 participants from across all of Dubai World’s corporate organizations to Wharton over a three-year period. Dubai World participants will attend a series of live program sessions and immerse themselves in action-learning projects to enhance strategic thinking capabilities and leadership skills.
Leading With Resilience: Coming Back From Challenge and Adversity
Wharton hosted its 10th annual Leadership Conference on June 13 as part of the School’s 125th anniversary celebration. The one-day intensive conference focused on how managers can lead with resilience and come back from challenge and adversity, whether in the private, public or nonprofit sectors. Speakers included author Jim Collins; Peter M. Dawkins, vice chairman of Citigroup Private Bank; Helen Greiner, cofounder and board chair of iRobot; Sylvia M. Montero, senior vice president, human resources at Pfizer Inc.; and David Pottruck, C’70, WG’72 CEO of Red Eagle Ventures
