BYU Student Wins International Entrepreneurship Award

PROVO, Utah – Dec 20, 2013 – Beating out more than 1,600 applicants from 37 countries, Brigham Young University student Spencer Quinn took home the 2013 Global Student Entrepreneur Award with his repair tape company FiberFix. He also walked away with $150,000 in cash and in-kind business services from Entrepreneurs’ Organization, a global network of more than 7,300 business owners.

Quinn, a genetics and biotechnology senior from Chandler, Ariz., won the regional competition in San Francisco before moving on to the undergraduate finals at the International Finance Corporation in Washington, D.C., where he also accepted this year’s Innovation Award.

“Each year we see an increase in applications and the quality of the businesses presenting,” says Adam Robinson, global GSEA sub-committee chair. “We were absolutely blown away by the talent of the 2013 GSEA participants.”

FiberFix, a resin coated repair wrap that claims to be 100 times stronger than duct tape, got its start with help from the Marriott School of Management. Quinn and his team participated in business competitions sponsored by the school’s Rollins Center for Entrepreneurship and Technology and received mentoring from its many successful entrepreneurs.

“Spencer’s achievement, as well as the success of our students over the past few years in this elite global competition, is evidence that our program is making a huge impact,” says Scott Petersen, managing director of the Rollins Center. “Students are learning the correct process for starting and scaling a business. We will continue to see large numbers of student ventures competing at the international level.”

The Rollins Center has also proven to build strong competition for the Global Student Entrepreneur Awards in years past. BYU student Garrett Gee, founder of Scan QR code scanners, was named runner-up in the 2011 undergraduate competition and Brad Moss, Marriott School MBA student and founder of React Games, was the graduate student winner in 2012.

“I am so incredibly grateful for the support from EO and GSEA,” Quinn says. “I look forward to nurturing the relationships I've made through this process and to growing FiberFix over many years to come.”

The Marriott School is located at Brigham Young University, the largest privately owned, church-sponsored university in the United States. The school has nationally recognized programs in accounting, business management, public management, information systems, and entrepreneurship. The school’s mission is to prepare men and women of faith, character and professional ability for positions of leadership throughout the world. Approximately 3,000 students are enrolled in the Marriott School’s graduate and undergraduate programs.