The Chicago Sun Times writes:
"Serial angel investor and newly minted septuagenarian Bob Geras is giving junior entrepreneurs 70,000 reasons to tighten up their business plans.
Geras, who has invested in hundreds of startups over the past 40 years, will provide $70,000 in grant money to the winners of the 2008 Illinois Business Schools' Plan Competition. The competition will be held in March in conjunction with the 2008 Midwest Venture Summit.
Organized by Dennis Serio of the Illinois Business and Investors Forum, the competition debuted last year and featured presentations from students representing the University of Illinois at Chicago, DePaul University, the University of Chicago, the University of Illinois at Champaign/Urbana and the Illinois Institute of Technology.
"A community is only as strong as its youth," said Serio, 61, who started the Forum in 2004. "We need to get back to taking care of our own so we can build the Motorolas and Caterpillars of the future. The key is to rally support from an investment community that has not been active."
Geras added that his commitment as well as efforts by venture capitalist J.B. Pritzker and the Chicagoland Entrepreneurial Center are meant to break the "vicious circle" that sees Chicago "lose good companies and leading edge technologies to areas which are less risk averse."
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