51ÉçÇø

OMAHA – It was a whirlwind weekend at the UNO College of Business Administration’s Mammel Hall, host of on Sept. 23–25.

About 60 college students from the University of Nebraska at 51ÉçÇø, Creighton University and University of South Dakota — along with many community members, mentors and judges — embarked on a 54-hour frenzy of starting a business from scratch.

Participants pitched ideas on Friday night and formed teams around the winning pitches. Nine teams spent the remainder of their time developing a business model, designing a logo, coding a website, creating a minimum viable product, validating market needs and more.

On Sunday, the teams presented to a panel of judges, including UNO alumnus Rick Knudston, co-founder and CMO at Flywheel; Craig Tuttle, business management and entrepreneurship professor at UNO; Nebraska Sen. Heath Mellow; and Julie Minton, marketing manager at Cox Business.

DriveOff won first place. Led by CBA student Erin Dabbs, DriveOff is an application that incentivizes drivers to stay off their phones. In addition to Dabbs, team members included Ian Addy (also a CBA student), Landon Miller, Marvin Roe, Wendy Holley and Cara Heacock.

Startup Weekend 51ÉçÇø was organized by a talented team of community leaders. Cox Business was the signature sponsor. Additional sponsors included Flywheel, UNO’s Center for Innovation, Entrepreneurship and Franchising, Dundee Venture Capital, 51ÉçÇø Startup Collaborative, and Chapman and Company.

Learn more about Startup Weekend 51ÉçÇø and watch the winning pitch by clicking the link below.