UPIKE’s business students win big at competition
0By Haley Jo Patton
On April 12, University of Pikeville Coleman College of Business students traveled to Lexington, Ky., to compete in the 2015 Alltech Innovation Competition. The winning teams were awarded $10,000 by Dr. Pearse Lyons, the founder of Alltech. The two winners of the graduate competition were the University of Pikeville and the University of Kentucky. UPIKE came out on top with the first place prize.
The five teams of graduate students were tasked with presenting business plans to create jobs and increase economic development in a nine county region of Eastern Kentucky including Pike, Floyd, Johnson, Magoffin, Knott, Martin, Bell, Harlan, and Letcher counties.
“The University of Pikeville is looking forward to working with UK, UofL, and Alltech to develop innovative ideas to grow the economy of our homeland,” said former Gov. Paul Patton prior to the event.
A group of graduate and undergraduate students secured the win with Rhizofeed, their herbal extraction company based out of Pikeville. Using bloodroot, which is harvested in Eastern Kentucky, it extracts whole rhizome for use in poultry feed to improve gut health. Their product aims to target poultry producers that are looking for alternatives to probiotics or antibiotics. Rhizofeed plans to increase diversity in Eastern Kentucky’s regional economy while improving poultry production world-wide.
“The quality of work this year was several magnitudes better than ever before but what made the winning projects so innovative was the simplicity of the ideas and the quality of the presentations,” Dr. Karl Dawson, chief scientific officer at Alltech, said.
“Competing in the Alltech competition was by far one of the greatest experiences of my life. Just eight short weeks before the competition, the five of us along with our two advisors came together as total strangers. Within that eight-week span, we put our heads together and came up with a plan capable of beating larger schools. We never dreamed that we would accomplish anything like this,” Molly Frank, student participant, said.