UA Little Rock business students take second place at international entrepreneurship competition

A team of business students from the University of Arkansas at Little Rock have won second place and a $3,000 prize at the international Ivey Business Plan Competition held Jan. 25-27 in Ontario, Canada, for their business plan for a device designed to help interventional cardiologists perform minimally invasive heart surgery with greater safety and efficiency.

The team is comprised of UA Little Rock students Noah Asher, senior finance and economics major, Abigail Resendiz, senior international business and management major, and Zach Cochran, senior economics major.

The group collaborated with Arkansas Cardiology Interventional Cardiologist Dr. Dwight Chrisman and Baptist Health Cardiovascular Intensive Care Unit Nurse Anna Helm to commercialize a medical device invented by Chrisman. The device, the "Speed-Torque," is a medical torque device used by surgeons in minimally invasive heart surgery, also known as interventional cardiology procedures.