Alaskan entrepreneurs seeking growth opportunities for their business ventures can enter the 2008 Annual Alaska Business Plan Competition, jointly sponsored by local universities and businesses. Finalists will present in front of judges, investors and other entrepreneurs on Wednesday, December 3rd at 6:00 PM in the UAA/APU Consortium Library, Anchorage. This annual competition stimulates the real-world process of learning, continuous improvement, and raising private capital that is collectively needed for a business' growth. Individuals or teams who reach the final round will give ten-minute presentations of their plans for start-up funding or later-round financing. Immediately following each presentation, the judges, made up of a panel of local investors, will ask questions of the entrepreneurs to test the plan's validity.

Matching good business ideas with good management teams and with qualified investors who are interested in private, early stage equity opportunities is one of the most difficult aspects of entrepreneurship. Nowhere in the United States is this truer than Alaska.

The 2008 Alaska Business Plan Competition will also provide a formal deal path so that entrepreneurs and their plans can be funneled before potential investors. Faculty from the Business Administration departments at both APU and UAA, along with APU MBA students and an informal network of capital formation professionals, will provide the beginnings of a validation process for some of the promising deals.

The Alaska Business Plan Competition is open to a broad range of participants including: new business, expanding or recapitalizing companies, merger, acquisition, buyout and takeover proposals, and 8(a) companies.

Allan Johnston
Alaska Business Plan Competition - Co-Founder and Advisor

Allan Johnston is the Alaska Regional Manager of Wedbush Morgan Securities. Vocationally he specializes in Alaska Native Corporation business development, Professionally Managed Separate Accounts and Investment Banking.

Allan has been with Wedbush Morgan Securities for 32 years and has been the Alaska Regional Manager for 17 years. Wedbush Morgan Securities has had a local office in Anchorage since 1971 and Fairbanks since 1975. On average, their Financial Consultants have more experience in Alaska than any other New York Stock Exchange Member Firm. They offer Investment Banking, Professionally Managed Accounts, Financial Planning and all other primary New York Stock Exchange Member firm services. (www.wedbush.com)

Avocationally he is a Co-founder of the Alaska Business Plan Competition, Chair of the AlaskaInvestnet Advisory Board, Director of The Alaska Community Foundation, Director of The Zoo Foundation, Director of Hillside East Community Council, and member of the University of Alaska Intellectual Property Committee.

Dr. Scott Fredrickson
Alaska Business Plan Competition - Advisor

Dr. Scott Fredrickson has more than 35 years experience in higher education, the music industry, and as an entrepreneur. He holds degrees in music education from Cal-State University Fullerton; business administration from Pepperdine University; and jazz pedagogy and music business administration from University of Northern Colorado. He has chaired numerous music business programs and is the former president and executive director of the Music & Entertainment Industry Educators Association, co-chair of the Arts & Entertainment Cluster of the New Orleans Regional Changer of Commerce, and fellow in the New Orleans Regional Leadership Institute.

He is a member of ASCAP and his compositions and arrangements have been heard on local and national radio and television, and are being performed regularly in the United States and many other countries. He has worked as a composer, arranger, director, and performer at theme parks, dinner theaters and corporate shows, and numerous commercial projects and has produced and engineered numerous albums of jazz and choral music and is in demand as a clinician, guest choral conductor, and festival adjudicator throughout the United States, Canada, and Europe. His Scat Singing Method and Popular Choral Handbook have been received enthusiastically by choral directors, and his articles on choral techniques have appeared in national educational journals and magazines.

Dr. Fredrickson is also an artist, digital archivist, and designer of laser-cut jigsaw puzzles. His paintings and sculptures have been shown in galleries in New Orleans and Los Angeles. His jigsaw puzzles have been featured in numerous international publications including Popular Science and Samsung magazines, and he has designed custom puzzles for various corporate clients. After the devastating hurricane that hit New Orleans, Dr. Fredrickson began an effort to digitally archive photographs, video and audio recordings to safeguard family memories. Links to his entrepreneurial ventures may be found here:

DiabolicalPuzzles.com
ScottArts.com
ScottMusic.com
NewOrleansDigitalArchiving.com
PopularChoralHandbook.com
ScatSinging.com

Dr. Bogdan Hoanca
Alaska Business Plan Competition - Advisor

Dr. Hoanca joined the Computer Information Systems department at UAA in June 2002, as an Assistant Professor. Before that, he was a consultant for several start-up companies in fiber optic communications. He was also a co-founder and the Manager of Optical Systems Architecture at the start-up Phaethon Communications in Fremont California, 2000-2001. Before Phaethon, Bogdan worked as a Research Assistant and then as a Research Associate at the University of Southern California, doing research on optical communication systems.

He has served as a consultant designing fiber optic communication systems, with an emphasis on signal integrity and on compensating fiber distortion. He is also an expert in Very Large Systems Integration (VLSI) Design and he has done work on optoelectronic free space digital optics (combining optical communication devices with VLSI circuits). Bogdan also has extensive experience with modeling communication systems, electromagnetic fields, and digital signal processing.

Prof. Hoanca is an active member of the Institute of Electrical and Electronic Engineers (IEEE). He serves on the executive committee of the IEEE Alaska Section, and is also the Government Activities Chair and the editor of the Section newsletter. He is also a member of the College of Business and Public Policy MBA committee and he chairs the search committee for advisors for the CIS department. Dr. Hoanca also serves on the CBPP Native Outreach committee. Outside UAA, Bogdan has volunteered with organizations such as Engineering Explorers (encouraging high school students to explore careers in engineering) and the Anchorage Literacy Project. He also traveled with the Voluntary Tax Assistance Program to Western Alaska leading UAA accounting students on tax assistance trips to Yupik villages.

Dr. Hoanca is a member of the Institute of Electrical and Electronic Engineers and has published more than 30 papers in peer reviewed journals and conference proceedings (three invited papers) and has been a reviewer for IEEE and Optical Society of America (OSA) journals since 1995. He coauthored a book chapter and he reviews books for the OSA on a regular basis. In 2003 Prof. Hoanca became involved with experimental economic efforts UAA, and is currently working on a fiscal policy experiment, with plans for other experimental work relevant to Alaskan issues. His other research is focused on optical networks, including work on wavelength routing and on network topologies.