{"id":20878,"date":"2013-02-13T11:04:27","date_gmt":"2013-02-13T16:04:27","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/brocku.ca\/brock-news\/?p=20878"},"modified":"2015-09-25T13:31:36","modified_gmt":"2015-09-25T17:31:36","slug":"alumnus-and-entrepreneur-steve-sal-debus-panelist-on-blueprint","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/brocku.ca\/brock-news\/2013\/02\/alumnus-and-entrepreneur-steve-sal-debus-panelist-on-blueprint\/","title":{"rendered":"Alumnus and entrepreneur Steve Sal Debus Panelist on Blueprint"},"content":{"rendered":"<p><img decoding=\"async\" loading=\"lazy\" class=\"alignleft size-full wp-image-20890\" title=\"blueprintresampled2\" src=\"http:\/\/brocku.ca\/brock-news\/wp-content\/uploads\/2013\/02\/blueprintresampled2.jpg\" alt=\"blueprintresampled2\" width=\"342\" height=\"194\" \/> What started as a business class project at Brock University quickly became a multi- million dollar venture for alumnus Steven Sal Debus (BBA &#8217;95). Modrobes, the lounge &#8220;exam pants,&#8221; grew in popularity throughout the &#8217;90s. With a successful bid on CBC&#8217;s <em>Dragon&#8217;s Den <\/em>in<em> <\/em>2009, Sal Debus was able to relaunch his company as a sustainable clothing line.<\/p>\n<p>On Feb. 27, Sal Debus will join an esteemed panel of Niagara business and community leaders to hear from the top five finalists for Brock University Students&#8217; Union Blueprint program.<\/p>\n<p>The Blueprint<em> <\/em>program is designed to give undergraduates and recent alumni the chance to develop and grow their entrepreneurial ideas and businesses. Blueprint has created a unique opportunity by providing students with business advice and mentorship. It<em> <\/em>is much more than a business competition.<\/p>\n<p>All Blueprint<em> <\/em>applicants have been screened and the top five finalists have been chosen. Each finalist will have 10 minutes to pitch their ideas to the panel of judges, including:<\/p>\n<p><strong>Brian McMullan:<\/strong> Mayor of St. Catharines<\/p>\n<p><strong>Nick DiPietro: <\/strong>Executive Director, Niagara Venture Forum; Executive-in-Residence, nGen; Brock University Board of Trustees member<\/p>\n<p><strong>Steven Sal Debus<\/strong>: Founder of Modrobes Casual Clothing, honoured as an Alumni of Distinction 2012, participant on Dragon&#8217;s Den<\/p>\n<p><strong>Heather Finn<\/strong>: BUSU president<\/p>\n<p><strong>Angelo Nitsopoulos<\/strong><strong>: COO Heart of Niagara Hotels<\/strong><\/p>\n<p>After the pitches, our panel will decide the top winners. There is up to $16,000 in prize money available to these Brock entrepreneurs.<\/p>\n<p>The event is from 1 p.m. to 4 p.m. at Isaac&#8217;s in the Student Alumni Centre. If you are interested in sitting in on any of these pitches, or learning about mentoring students through their business ventures, please email <a href=\"mailto:jcrawford@brocku.ca\">jcrawford@brocku.ca<\/a>. If you would like to attend this free event, please RSVP by going to the link below:<\/p>\n<p><a href=\"https:\/\/www.surveymonkey.com\/s\/BlueprintRSVP\">https:\/\/www.surveymonkey.com\/s\/BlueprintRSVP<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>What started as a business class project at Brock University quickly became a multi-million dollar venture for alumnus Steven Sal Debus (BBA &#8217;95). <\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":10,"featured_media":20890,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":[],"categories":[119],"tags":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/brocku.ca\/brock-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/20878"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/brocku.ca\/brock-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/brocku.ca\/brock-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/brocku.ca\/brock-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/10"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/brocku.ca\/brock-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=20878"}],"version-history":[{"count":9,"href":"https:\/\/brocku.ca\/brock-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/20878\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":35503,"href":"https:\/\/brocku.ca\/brock-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/20878\/revisions\/35503"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/brocku.ca\/brock-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/20890"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/brocku.ca\/brock-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=20878"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/brocku.ca\/brock-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=20878"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/brocku.ca\/brock-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=20878"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}