1st Prize for the ALBA team at the European Business Plan of the Year Competition 2005!

The ALBA 'NANOCHEM S.A.' Team won the first prize at the EUROPEAN BUSINESS PLAN OF THE YEAR COMPETITION 2005, which took place on June 2-4 2005, at the Stockholm School of Entrepreneurship (Sweden). It is noteworthy that ALBA had also won the 1^st Prize at the European Business Plan of the Year Competition 2003.

The European Business Plan of the Year Competition was jointly created by INSEAD and London Business School in 1993 to encourage the teaching of entrepreneurship and the creation of new ventures. Now it has become an independent Foundation jointly 'owned' by the participating schools. 

The ALBA 'NANOCHEM S.A.' Team consisting of students of the full-time MBA Dr. Ioannis Arabatzis, Despoina Chatzimichalaki, Anastasia Kopanaki, Dimitris Lykoudis, and Ioannis Moraitidis, made an outstanding impression at the competition by presenting NANOCHEM's solid and innovative business plan. NANOCHEM has developed an invisible, patent-protected, layer that can be applied to a variety of surfaces and provides them with self-cleaning, self-sterilizing and anti-fogging properties. The team was supervised by Dr. Vasilis Theoharakis, Associate Professor of Marketing & Entrepreneurship. The original concept was created by Dr. Arabatzis during his PhD at the Institute of Physical Chemistry of NCSR Demokritos, work which was supervised by the Director of Research, Dr. P.Falaras. This project not only has a high and worldwide potential but also promises a high rate of return to potential investors.  

The following business schools participated in the 2005 competition (alphabetical order): ALBA (Greece), SDA BOCCONI (Italy), Cranfield School of Management (U.K.), Helsinki University of Technology (Finland), IESE Business School (Spain), The Management School/Imperial College (U.K.), INSEAD (France), London Business School (U.K.), Rotterdam School of Management (The Netherlands), SSES- Stockholm School of Entrepreneurship (Sweden), WHU- Otto Beisheim Graduate School of Management (Germany).

This great success of our students has even greater symbolic value not only for ALBA but also for Greece! ALBA is particularly proud because this significant distinction of ALBA coincides with the year 2005 being the 'Year of Competitiveness' for Greece.

ALBA

• is the only School that has won the competition twice in the last five years.
• is the only Greek institution that participates at the competition
• along with London Business School, are the only Schools that have made it to the final stage the last five consecutive years.

It is also worth mentioning that ALBA will represent Europe at the global Entrepreneurship competition 3^rd Global Startup @ Stanford, which will be held in Stanford University, USA, in January 2006.

The ALBA faculty and staff wish to congratulate the 'NANOCHEM S.A.' team for their hard work, enthusiasm and commitment.