Deadline: 14 February 2011
Open to: college students from around the world
Prize: $50,000 to launch the winner’s venture
The University of Texas and Dell are looking for college students from around the world who want to improve areas of critical human need through innovation.
Providing a vehicle for taking student innovations from idea to reality, Dell’s Social Innovation Competition is a real-world exercise for perfecting your skills in:
* Project/business plan development
* Pitching ideas to investors
* Building resource networks
Eligibility
Team Eligibility
* Undergraduate and graduate level students from any university or college in the world are eligible to enter. Proof of enrollment will be requested of all semifinalist and finalist contestants.
* The individual or team must be comprised of students currently attending a university. Students who graduated in December 2010 are eligible to enter.
* Contestants must be actively involved in the venture.
* Team size is not restricted. Teams can seek advice from mentors or outside experts, but the venture must be entirely student-led.
* All team members listed on the final venture plan will be considered full team members with equal share of the venture, unless otherwise stipulated in the venture plan.
* Teams that have previously reached the final presentation round of the Dell Social Innovation Competition may not re-enter this year’s competition with the same venture.
* Team members competing must be principle owners of the venture.
* Competition entry void where prohibited by law.
The only limit to the range of projects eligible for the award is the ambition and imagination of each contestant; any significant social issue can be addressed in this competition
No matter what your specialty may be, or whether you work in a team or as an individual, unleash your energy, idealism and public-spirited thinking to affect positive change in areas of critical human need.
Competition Details
The Dell Social Innovation Competition operates like a business-plan competition, awarding seed funding directly to the student-led venture that best meets the judges’ criteria.
The competition has 4 stages:
1. College students from around the world enter the competition online, each with a brief description of his or her innovation.
2. Competition judges invite a small group of semifinalists to develop their ideas into detailed venture plans. Each semifinalist records a 3-minute video pitch of his or her plan.
3. Judges select 3 finalists to travel to Austin, Texas, to present their plans to a committee comprised of leaders from the business, non-profit and government sectors.
4. During the final event, held at The University of Texas at Austin, all finalists receives prizes, and the overall winner receives $50,000 to launch his or her venture.
Vote
You can be the judge. Show your support for the ideas you like the most. Log in and press the promote button next to the ideas you want to vote to the top of the list. There is no limit to the number of ideas you can promote. The top 10 ideas in round one of the competition will automatically advance to round two.
Enter the competition
There are three easy steps:
Step 1: Log in. You will need to login to enter, vote or comment on ideas.
Step 2: Enter the details about your innovation. Once you create a user name, press the Enter button again and you will get the complete entry form. If you have formed a team, you can enter team members on the entry form. Only one person on the team needs to enter the idea.
Step 3: Alert your friends using Facebook, Twitter, e-mail and more. Get your friends to vote your idea to the top! People from all over the world will be looking at the description of your idea and helping to decide who wins the $50,000!
Deadline : February 14, 2011.
For any question, please, contact innovation@rgkcenter.org.
