A bit of American Idol, Miss America and the Oscars for geeks and nerds, today's Panasci Competition did not disappoint. The five companies gave polished presentations and endured a gauntlet of questioning from a tough panel of judges (including Jim Hengst, President and CEO of ZeptoMetrix, and Marnie LaVigne, Director of Business Development at the Center of Excellence in Bioinformatics and Life Sciences, both of whom we are proud to have on the CH3 BioSystems Advisory Board).
Since we were the winners of last years competition, John and I were treated like mini-celebrities. We got valet parking and free drinks! OK, everyone got that, but we had reserved seats right in the front row! That was cool. It was sooo nice to be an observer instead of a presenter, especially at the end when they dragged out announcing the winners, like waiting for Heidi Klum to say:
"Christian...............................!!!..................................congratulations, you are the winner!" I remember how grueling that was last year and my heart was in my throat in sympathy.
The winners for 2008....in second place was a simple but exciting idea to develop an eharmony-like website service to match up college students and mentors. The Mentor Cafe team was appealing and their conc
ept elegant. I can imagine referring people to them in the future. The grand prize winners were Nanoaxis, manufacturers of quantum dots, a promising microscopic delivery system for future drug therapies. When their name was announced the team of four jumped up with whoops and hugged each other like when
Peter Jackson and his production team won their Oscars for Lord of the Rings. Everyone in the room was smiling and clapping for them and the promise of the future.
