WPI Venture Forum to Focus on Overcoming Obstacles in Successful Business Building

Media Contact
October 13, 2008

What

The Worcester Polytechnic Institute (WPI) Venture Forum will feature a keynote address by Ken Rapp, founder, president, and CEO of Hopkinton, Mass.-based VelQuest Corp.  Rapp will address how to take an idea for the “next big thing” and transform it into a successful business with a commercially viable product or service.  He will focus on the many obstacles that ventures must overcome. Rapp will explain how he identified a major bottleneck in the pharmaceutical industry that delayed the process of bringing new medicine to market, and how he successfully built a company and products that offer innovative solutions to the problem. A case presentation will also be made featuring Cambridge, Mass.-based Vigix Inc. CEO Steve Pytka ’68, and President and Founder Eduardo Alvarez. Sign up online at www.wpiventureforum.org.

Who    

Rapp launched VelQuest in 1999. Prior to founding the company, he held a variety of technology and management positions with Zymark Corp from 1984 through 1999.  To date, VelQuest has developed two products that automatically and effectively gather, store, and retrieve data -- all in compliance with applicable regulations, and in a manner that frees up a lab’s limited resources to spend more time researching and less time doing tedious paperwork.

When       

Tuesday, Oct. 14: Doors open at 5:30 p.m. for networking; 6:30-8:30 p.m., program

Where      

Worcester Polytechnic Institute

Campus Center Odeum Room

100 Institute Road

Worcester, Mass.

Note

$15 members; $25 non-members; register/pay online before 3 p.m. to get a pre-printed nametag.