The snow is finally melting and temperatures are slowly rising, which means we are finally entering collegiate competition season, including our annual CCEI Startup Challenge.
The CCEI Startup Challenge is a two-pronged initiative that includes a Pitch Competition (April 7th), where ten $1000 prizes are given out for different categories of elevator pitches. Then, the second element is a written Strategy Competition, where participants submit a written application containing specific elements found in a business plan (submission is max 5 pages in length), all submissions are reviewed, and the finalists are invited to do a full length presentation for a panel of judges from the University and from the Connecticut entrepreneurial community. The details of these events can be found by vising our “Business Plan Competition” page.
So, although this is a two part initiative, participants can do either/or, or both events. However, we strongly encourage people to take the ideas that they pitch at the Pitch Competition, and flesh them out and submit written Strategy Competition entries for these same ideas. The Strategy Competition also provides winners with larger monetary prizes, details found on the Business Plan Competition page.
In past years, we have had significant overlap with other competition participants, such as Innovation Quest (iQ), the Engineering Senior Design Project (ESDP), Startup Weekend Storrs, and the State Collegiate BizPlan Competition. The Pitch Competition is an event that we designed to be “for students by students”, and this years’ judges include winners from the 2013 CCEI Startup Challenge. It is fun and interactive, and last year there were over 60 ideas presented to a packed room of over 100 attendees.
Any UConn student is eligible to participate – each person (or team) has 90 seconds to present an elevator pitch for an idea of any type (app, manufactured product, service, etc.), real or hypothetical, and we present ten participants with $1000 each for 10 different prize categories, which include things like “best green idea”, “best college-focused idea”, “best overall pitch”, etc (listed on Business Plan Competition page). If you already are working on an idea, or if you are someone who wants to become involved in entrepreneurship at UConn, please come join us for the Pitch Competition! Any type of idea pitch will be heard – be as creative and innovative as you want to be. Do you have an idea? Pitch it!!!!