Last week, we told you about a group of Bradley students who are launching a non profit organization that pairs rescued dogs with people with disabilities.

That group competed in a business development contest the University hosted.

Their project came out of a need for students to have access to used goods.
The result is a venture called U–Exchange - a sort of Craigslist for college students, where students can swap merchandise.

He is Bradley University's big man on campus. Confident,
intelligent, and the winner of a prestigious business competition.

"What I believe is that if you work hard, if you're
determined, if you're focused, you will achieve your goal."

A world away from his native Zimbabwe, Tatenda Farusa is
quite at home inside business labs, tweaking his work, which now
involves more than class assignments.

His student business team captured first place in Bradley's Springboard
competition. With funding from businessman Alexis Khazaam, Farusa has gone from studying business concepts to actually starting up and
operating a business called University Exchange.

"Basically what we are is an online marketplace that allows college
students to buy and sell used goods on campus. This includes
textbooks, furniture, and personal items. In addition, we'll have a
store front and delivery service to accommodate the transaction of
goods and services," said Farusa. "So basically, we are the medium and we believe we can make college students buy and sell goods much faster, conveniently and more efficiently on each individual campus beginning at Bradley University."

A junior, Farusa plans to spend the summer in Peoria
establishing his business. And despite a downturn in the economy, he
is confident he'll succeed.

"The fact that the economy is down right now in a
recovery period means that the opportunities for businessmen like me or
other people to step in and create an economy basically create
employment, create activity that will get the economy going again,
whether you're in good times or bad tmes, there's always opportunity
for entrepreneurs in the marketplace. I doesn't discourage me. In
fact it is an opportunity for me and my team."

A winning team, led by a creative thinker, with a winning attitude.
For winning the springboard competition, Farusa and the U–Exchange received 120–thousand dollars in prizes and 15–thousand dollars in seed money to start their business.
For a link to the U–Exchange's facebook page, there's a link on our website...W–E–E–K–dot–com...click on the newslinks tab...