Download the Competition Prizes and Awards Summary

Cash prizes in the competition are scaled to provide larger rewards for business concepts and business plans that are judged as being the most complete and ready for the real world marketplace. Therefore, additional points will be given to entries from teams that own or have licensed legally protected intellectual property.

Business plan entries are required to be more detailed than business concept entries and must include required financial information about the proposed venture.

Graduate student teams are considered, for purposes of the competition, to be more ready to implement their plans and succeed in the real-world marketplace. Consequently, winning business plans will qualify for larger prizes than will winning business concepts, and prizes for winning graduate teams will be larger than those for undergraduate teams.

Prizes for winning business PLANS:
1. Upfront Prizes: This portion of the cash prize will be earned by winning student business plan teams immediately upon announcement of the competition winners. The upfront prize money will be distributed by the Cabinet to the universities within 60 days of the competition, which the universities will then distribute equally to the winning team members named on the entry forms.

2. Follow-On Prizes: A second portion of the cash prize can be claimed by winning student business PLAN teams only if the team or qualified portion of the team elects to form a legal business entity based on the product, service or organization described in the winning plan. These additional funds will be distributed by the university (acting as fiscal agent) only as reimbursement for legitimate, specified and documented expenses related to the formation and operation of the business. Note: A winning team or qualified part of the winning team must form the legal business entity within one year of the competition in which it competed and won.

Prizes for winning business CONCEPTS:
Teams entering winning business concepts will earn the entire cash prize immediately upon announcement of the competition winners. The upfront prize money will be distributed by the Cabinet to the universities within 60 days of the competition, which the universities will then distribute equally to the winning team members named on the entry forms. There are no follow-on prizes for teams with winning business concepts.

All entries submitted will be evaluated by the Competition Committee to determine which, if any, qualify as being based on a high-tech product, high-tech service or high-tech intellectual property. “High-tech” is defined as a product, service or intellectual property derived from research and development, and is based on, employs, or represents the most advanced technology currently available. Entries determined by the Competition Committee to have a high-tech component AND that win their competition category (based on the judges’ scoring), will receive an additional “high-tech” cash prize.

If more than one high-tech prize is awarded by the Competition Committee, the high-tech prize amounts will be pro-rated based on the amount of the upfront prize earned by each team. The overall amount of the high-tech prize pool determines the amount of cash available for the high-tech prize(s). In no case shall the high-tech prize to any team exceed that of the upfront prize awarded to that team. The entire high-tech prize pool does not have to be awarded in any given year. Winning business PLAN teams that qualify as having high-tech entries will receive their high-tech award only as part of their follow-on prize.

Cash prizes will also be awarded to the top three faculty advisors that are nominated by their team(s) and selected by the Competition Committee from among all nominated faculty advisors for teams from participating universities. Teams wishing to nominate their faculty advisor for an award should download and complete the Advisor Award Nomination Form and submit it along with their written entry.