Vote for the best business idea

Monday, 23 April 2007

By SCBIZ Staff South Carolina residents can vote for their favorite business idea as part of the New Ideas for a New Carolina competition. Voting is open for the top 10 ideas in the “Wild Card” business category. The business idea with the most votes receives $1,500, a scholarship to FastTrac for business training and tickets to the ThinkTEC Innovation Summit coming up May 7 in Charleston where all business idea winners will be announced. Finalists are: •    JetWing: patented technology allows for last resort "dropping" of airliner fuel tanks before a crash landing in order to eliminate the fire hazard upon impact. •    Spark!: A community-shared workplace for mobile workers that promotes collaboration and encourages new business opportunities. The cafe-like venue is an alternative to the social isolation of working from home or at the ill-equipped coffee shop and is outfitted with all of the necessities that professionals need (reliable Wi-Fi, all-in-one printers, meeting space, a physical address). Space can be reserved for hours, days, weeks or months at a time. •    Beer StockXchange Bar: A Beer Bar whose inventory system is integrated with the register so every five minutes the price of every beer fluctuates depending upon the quantity sold. The constantly fluctuating prices would be projected onto several plasma/LCD screens and patrons would be allowed to purchase their selection via touch screen interface. •    Interactive Street Advertising: Interactive advertisement for projection on sidewalks or rear-projected store advertisements. The system would interact with people walking along the street to draw attention to products or sales at each specific location. Eventually this technology would be integrated into GPS Bluetooth phones so that people walking by could choose to receive a coupon or discount at the participating store. •    Identity Central: Identity Central would enable all types of organizations and groups to upload their logos and other images to a centralized computer system allowing cost-effective customized merchandise to be purchased on demand. •    Capsule Hotel: A small space for sleeping, which, combined with a nearby garage, would provide students near a university campus parking their cars and napping space during a long break between classes. Restaurants and a gym or spa could also be incorporated into the hotel. The idea models hotels already operating in Japan. •    17 South Seafood: A vertically integrated buyer, distributor, wholesaler and retailer of fresh seafood products from the South Carolina coast. It will circumvent the conventional seafood industry channels and source local products directly from fishermen, shrimpers and aqua-culturists for sale to consumers, restaurants and 17 South retail stores. •    Bark After Dark: A member-based, indoor and climate-controlled dog walking facility for owners to walk their dogs. •    Aquatic Muscle: A swimming body suit with five interchangeable levels of buoyancy, designed for children, to teach them how to swim at their own pace. •    String Lights Installation Tool: The string lights installation tool will knit string and rope type lights onto objects with a fixture tool, eliminating the wrapping effort of installing string and rope type lights onto objects for decorative lighting purposes. Vote online today through April 30.