The Cozad New Venture Challenge celebrated its 25th anniversary this year, and Gies Business teams were well represented among its participants and honorees. For starters, Gies-led teams accounted for 57 (up from seven in 2024) of the 308 teams entered. Of those 308, only six were invited to present at the final round on April 17. One of the six finalists, VOCA Health, includes a Gies MBA student on its leadership team. Two other Gies-led teams won named cash awards. Gies is a co-sponsor of Cozad this year.

Lakshmi Priya Rangaraju, who will complete her MBA from Gies this year, leads business operations for one of those finalists, . VOCA Health (right) not only won a $10,000 finalist prize but also won the $5,000 Health Innovation Prize awarded by the Carle Illinois College of Medicine. The startup is building a voice disorder management tool for ENT and speech pathology clinicians and patients. They are incorporating a mobile platform that allows patients to record voice samples from virtually anywhere and upload them to the cloud, where they are analyzed using key objective metrics. The results can be shared with health care providers for timely management and monitoring.

“My focus has been identifying what is important for customers and developing a strategy for getting the product in the hands of those who need it, and the business model to make it profitable for us or make it attractive for venture capitalists,” Rangaraju said. “The courses I have taken here have helped me shape the business plan, develop the marketing strategy, and position the company in the marketplace.”

EduConvert and SnapSmoke each claimed the Larry F. Voitik Award, presented to teams led by students enrolled in Gies’ fully online iMBA program. It carries a $1,500 cash prize. EduConvert also earned a $4,000 Global Impact Innovator Award.

(left) is a startup focused on simplifying lead management for training providers and universities. Their CRM system is built specifically for the continuing education and professional training space. They help reduce the administrative burden, generate better insights from marketing data, and make it easier to convert leads into students. They launched the company in Sweden in 2024, just signed their first paying clients in Germany, and are taking the first steps into the US market.

“Receiving the Global Impact Prize and the Larry F. Voitik Award at Cozad means a lot to us,” said Ingmar Bertram, CEO and co-founder of EduConvert and current Gies iMBA student. “It’s a strong signal that the problem we’re solving is real — and that our solution has potential not just in Europe, but globally. The support, mentorship, and recognition we’ve received here at Illinois have been incredibly valuable to us as a team. Cozad also helped us identify a promising niche for EduConvert in the US market that we hadn’t explored before — and we’re now in active conversations with our first potential US client.”

is dedicated to helping people quit nicotine through innovative vape liquid additives that reduce addiction and withdrawal symptoms, offering a high-compliance solution for those seeking to transition away from nicotine dependence. 

“The Cozad New Venture Challenge was instrumental in refining our focus, helping us identify our beachhead market and map our next steps,” said Gregory Robinson, SnapSmoke CEO and iMBA student. “Winning this award provides critical momentum and resources to launch our first product and begin making an impact.”

The Cozad New Venture Challenge, presented by the Technology Entrepreneur Center in collaboration with Gies College of Business and Carle Illinois College of Medicine, supports University of Illinois startups in the launch of sustainable business ventures, awarding over $3.4 million in funding and prizes since 2000. Gies Business is also supporting entrepreneurial activities of both on-campus and online learners through its Origin Ventures Office of Entrepreneurship. The Origin Ventures Office fosters knowledge creation and dissemination from top faculty in the field, and it designs and offers the curriculum needed to bring that knowledge to the classroom. The office houses iVenture Accelerator, an accelerator for top student startups at the University of Illinois, and co-sponsors the Cozad New Venture Challenge.

About 200 teams participated in Demo Day held on April 2 at the Illinois Conference Center, where they pitched to approximately 245 judges, including local community leaders, alumni, investors, faculty, and ecosystem partners.  Participants engaged in workshops on customer discovery, value proposition, financial planning, and presentation skills. The teams were competing for awards from a $500,000-plus prize pool.