TCU student Adam Blake to participate in business challenge at Indianapolis Motor Speedway

Fort Worth, TX

3/19/2007

Adam Blake, a senior entrepreneurial major at TCU’s Neeley School of Business, has been chosen to participate in a unique business plan challenge: Ball State will give Blake and other student entrepreneurs 500 seconds in a limousine as it circles the Indianapolis Motor Speedway to present their business idea to a panel of judges as part of the inaugural Nascent 500 Business Plan Challenge. Blake will complete against 11 other entrepreneurship college students from across the nation on March 23 at the renowned Speedway. The winning student(s) will receive $10,000, a quart of milk and a victory lap around the track.

“Being an entrepreneur means jumping on opportunities no matter when or where they occur,” said Larry Cox, director of Ball State's Entrepreneurship Center. “Your shot to make your dream a reality may not come at a desk or over a large PowerPoint presentation. It could be a chance meeting in an elevator or in the back of a limo.”

Students from around the nation submitted business plans for the competition. Besides Blake, those chosen to participate in the limousine pitch round include students from Ball State University, Illinois Institute of Technology, Illinois State University, Loyola Marymount University, Purdue University, Taylor University, Texas State University, University of Hartford, University of Manitoba, University of Michigan and Vanderbilt University.

After the initial trip around the track, four teams will be selected by the judges to make a full business plan presentation in the homestretch round.

Blake owns Blake Venture Corp, a full service real estate company that specializes in buying, selling, managing, and leasing a diversified portfolio of residential and commercial investment properties. He has been featured in the Fort Worth Star-Telegram, Fort Worth Business Press and Fortune Small Biz. Blake won the Global Student Entrepreneur Award in 2005.