Tuck student's business plan wins Global Social Venture Competition

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FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE—May 19, 2009

CONTACT:Kim Keating, 603-646-2733

HANOVER, N.H.—A team of Dartmouth graduate students placed first in the U.S. and second globally out of more than 300 applicants in the 2009 Global Social Venture Competition (GSVC). Shivam Rajdev, a second-year student at the Tuck School of Business at Dartmouth, and Ashifi Gogo, a Ph.D. Innovation Program candidate at Thayer School of Engineering at Dartmouth, won $10,000 for their business plan introducing mPedigree Logistics.

Gogo came up with the idea for mPedigree Logistics after witnessing the devastating effects of fake medication in his native Ghana. These counterfeit drugs contain little or no active ingredients and are often laced with dangerous chemicals. The new company leverages the power of four billion cell phones to fight this problem by allowing consumers to confirm a drug's authenticity with a simple text message. Their plan will help guarantee access to safe drugs while also enabling genuine pharmaceutical manufacturers to reclaim market share lost to counterfeiters.

"I entered the GSVC because I wanted to demonstrate that it's possible to have a strong social and environmental impact while delivering good financial results," says Rajdev. "In the future, every business will need to understand and account for the impact that their company will have on society. It is important to cultivate future business leaders who value the social mission of their enterprises in addition to their profit potential."

GSVC is the largest and oldest student-led business plan competition providing mentoring, exposure, and prizes for social ventures from around the world. The mission of the GSVC is to catalyze the creation of social ventures, educate future leaders, and build awareness of social enterprises. The competition supports the creation of real businesses that bring about positive social change in a sustainable manner. Teams came to compete from business schools around the world, including India, France, London, Thailand, New Zealand, Indonesia, and the U.S.

The next step for the group is to conduct a trial of the technology in Nigeria this summer, with a goal of launching the technology there by the end of this year. The work in Nigeria will serve as a case study for entering the Indian market early next year.

For more information on GSVC, visitwww.gsvc.org.

Founded in 1900, Tuck is the first graduate school of management in the country and consistently ranks among the top business schools worldwide. Tuck remains distinctive among the world's great business schools by combining human scale with global reach, rigorous coursework with experiences requiring teamwork, and valued traditions with innovation.

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