Business plan takes students to Germany

Five UNM students are chasing their dreams — all the way to Hamburg, Germany.
The group earned one of five spots at the International Supercomputer Conference 2010 in Germany with a business plan they made for a local company, said graduate student Adel Saad.

“We’re really excited because, in the beginning, they told us that they’re pretty competitive in Europe,” he said. “I think it’s great to see that we can keep up with the international community even though we’re from New Mexico.”

MBA student Charles Kassicieh said he helped predict revenue, sales and expenses, made a five-year timeline and researched future clients.
“I think this will help UNM put us on the map internationally, especially for engineering and business,” he said.
The start-up plan that the group made for Creative Consultants, a local supercomputing company, takes cutting-edge technology and makes it widely available over the Internet. The technology processes large groups of numbers at the same time, not serially like a normal computer. This produces faster results for scientists, engineers and researchers.

Kassicieh said the technology is becoming especially popular in biomedical sciences for looking at molecules and how they interact with their environment.

“I think our technology will help companies come up with drugs and cures faster,” he said. “It can help people in the movie industry, mining, medical imaging — a lot of people can benefit from our plans.”

Saad said the group competed against 54 groups from all around the world. The conference is May 30 through June 3, and the students will get 20 minutes to talk about their start-up project, as well as a chance to show their project to representatives from all over the world.
The group is made up of two engineering students, two MBA students, and Saad, a College of Education graduate student. UNM professors also mentored the students.

Kassicieh said that the business plan is just the first step. He said the group will still be involved in marketing the product after its return from ISC.

The technology uses GPU — or graphic processing units. This is the same technology that is used in graphic design, but can speed up a normal computer’s “brain,” said Greg Scantlen, Creative Consultants CEO.
“It’s really a frontier technology at this point,” he said.

Saad said it was challenging to bring this technology from a small company in Albuquerque to be available worldwide through the Internet.
He said the group will also compete in the upcoming Anderson Technology Business Plan Competition. He said that if his group wins, the up-to $25,000 in prize money will help finance the group’s flights and housing in Germany.