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UNC undergraduate wins national entrepreneurship competition E-mail
Tuesday, November 25, 2008
Tripp Gobble, a junior at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill, won the national Race To BE. The Sound music competition Nov. 19 in Austin, Texas, beating out four other young artists after a rigorous, day-long event.

Gobble, co-founder of a nonprofit student-run record label and music incubator at UNC, “blew away the competition,” event organizers said, and walked away with a cash prize of $5,000. “The most valuable part of this experience is the mentoring – the chance to work with such incredible entrepreneurs and learn from them,” Gobble said. “To me the opportunity is worth everything.”

 gobble
 
Tripp Gobble, pictured at left with
Al Mask, co-founders of Vinyl Records,
wins the nationwide entrepreneurship
competition Nov. 19 in Austin, Texas.
The Race to BE. is the signature U.S. event of Global Entrepreneurship Week, a worldwide initiative focused on inspiring the next generation of entrepreneurs. The event was designed to engage creative thinkers between the ages of 18 and 29 to leverage their artistic abilities into successful business ventures in film, music and fashion. Hundreds of young entrepreneurs from more than 22 states applied to compete in the Race to BE., with some applicants coming from as far as the United Kingdom.

Gobble is a Morehead-Cain Scholar majoring in environmental studies and minoring in city and regional planning and development in UNC’s College of Arts and Sciences. Earlier this year, Gobble and Allen Mask, a junior journalism and mass communications major, formed Vinyl Records with assistance from the Carolina Entrepreneurial Initiative, part of the Frank Hawkins Kenan Institute of Private Enterprise. This help included a $25,000 grant from the CEI Innovations Fund, which seeds new entrepreneurial programs at UNC, contingent upon attracting additional venture investment. Vinyl Records provides student musicians with opportunities to perform, record and produce their own music, ultimately preparing them for the professional music industry. Grace Kennerly, a UNC sophomore majoring in music, is a director of Vinyl Records. For more information, contact This e-mail address is being protected from spam bots, you need JavaScript enabled to view it

Race to BE. Web site: http://www.racetobeusa.com/
Vinyl Records Web site: http://vinylrecordsunc.wordpress.com/
Carolina Entrepreneurial Initiative contact:  Cyndy Falgout, (919) 401-3548, This e-mail address is being protected from spam bots, you need JavaScript enabled to view it
News Services contact: Susan Houston, (919) 962-8415, This e-mail address is being protected from spam bots, you need JavaScript enabled to view it