Kwasi Agyemang Wins First Place at Regional Business Competition

2016 May 13

Kwasi Agyemang, a SUNY Oneonta graduate student from Brooklyn, NY, represented the Mohawk Valley in the state finals of the seventh annual New York Business Plan Competition (NYBPC) on April 29 in Albany.

Agyemang, who will graduate May 14 with a Master of Arts degree in History Museum Studies from SUNY Oneonta's Cooperstown Graduate Program, took first place at the regional level in the Informational Technology/Software category for his company, Travelsee.

Travelsee is a web-based application that uses predictive analytics to help museums and cultural institutions improve target marketing and demonstrate community value. Registered as business in Otsego County in October 2015, Travelsee has partnerships with area institutions including the Fenimore Art Museum, Utica Zoo, and Munson-Williams-Proctors Art Institute.

Agyemang won second place in the same competition last year, and re-entered this year with a larger team that includes Cornell University students Jim Li, Ziquan Miao and Christine Geeng. Agyemang met the Cornell students while interning at Cornell Law School last summer.

Advisors for the team were Brian Alexander, visiting professor at the Cooperstown Graduate Program; Ryan Miller; director of thINCubator; and Osen Pogoson, Cornell MBA Mentor at Big Red Microenterprise.

After graduation, Agyemang plans to focus on the business full-time, using connections he made through the competition to continue scaling up and adding clients.

"Competing in the NYBPC has played a major role in building important contacts throughout the state," he said. "It has been helpful in getting valuable feedback, growing our team, and gaining business mentorship. I look forward to students at SUNY Oneonta continuing to participate in NYBPC.

For the past year, Agyemang has met regularly with undergraduates in the SUNY Oneonta Entrepreneurship Club. Carolyn Lewis, the college's economic development coordinator, helped start the club, which is led by business economics major Tim Distler.