2008 Woodie Awards
Entrepreneurs vie for prizes, investors
Gigot contest encourages, rewards innovation
Marcela Berrios
Issue date: 10/3/07 Section: News
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Facebook began as a Harvard student's idea - and today the social network is a business valued at nearly $1 billion.
The next great idea could be under construction right now - and the Gigot Center for Entrepreneurial Studies' business plan competition could be the tool that helps it become a reality.
The Center's annual contest awards more than $40,000 in prizes to teams of students, alumni and University employees that can present to potential investors promising and innovative ventures and their respective business plans.
Since 1999, the yearlong competition has drawn students from every college and major to submit pioneering, financially-realizable projects and helped them to produce a business proposal they can submit to investors, Daniel Buckenmeyer, the Center's associate director, said Tuesday.
"Students can come up with ideas that may seem crazy at first, but in reality they may be the next YouTube, and this competition allows them to build a tool that will tell them whether or not this thing can succeed in the marketplace," Buckenmeyer said. "It's a real world test bed for students."
The competition's judges are not professors or University administrators but rather outside businessmen who volunteer their time to the Center through the IrishAngels network.
The network brings together Notre Dame alumni who have entrepreneurial experience and share the Center's educational mission of fostering entrepreneurship in students through education and teamwork.
"It is through IrishAngels that we are able to find the speakers that come to campus throughout the year to teach the students how to put together a business plan," Buckenmeyer said. "And they review every single business plan that gets produced in this competition."
He said by putting the students' work in the hands of IrishAngels judges rather than professors, the Center is drawing a clear line between the classroom and the real marketplace.
"The people that look at the business plan aren't grading grammar. They are looking at them from a pure, real-world business perspective and saying 'Would this thing sell?' And that's really the value of the competition," Buckenmeyer said. "Students will know the marketplace value of their invention or their venture."
The next great idea could be under construction right now - and the Gigot Center for Entrepreneurial Studies' business plan competition could be the tool that helps it become a reality.
The Center's annual contest awards more than $40,000 in prizes to teams of students, alumni and University employees that can present to potential investors promising and innovative ventures and their respective business plans.
Since 1999, the yearlong competition has drawn students from every college and major to submit pioneering, financially-realizable projects and helped them to produce a business proposal they can submit to investors, Daniel Buckenmeyer, the Center's associate director, said Tuesday.
"Students can come up with ideas that may seem crazy at first, but in reality they may be the next YouTube, and this competition allows them to build a tool that will tell them whether or not this thing can succeed in the marketplace," Buckenmeyer said. "It's a real world test bed for students."
The competition's judges are not professors or University administrators but rather outside businessmen who volunteer their time to the Center through the IrishAngels network.
The network brings together Notre Dame alumni who have entrepreneurial experience and share the Center's educational mission of fostering entrepreneurship in students through education and teamwork.
"It is through IrishAngels that we are able to find the speakers that come to campus throughout the year to teach the students how to put together a business plan," Buckenmeyer said. "And they review every single business plan that gets produced in this competition."
He said by putting the students' work in the hands of IrishAngels judges rather than professors, the Center is drawing a clear line between the classroom and the real marketplace.
"The people that look at the business plan aren't grading grammar. They are looking at them from a pure, real-world business perspective and saying 'Would this thing sell?' And that's really the value of the competition," Buckenmeyer said. "Students will know the marketplace value of their invention or their venture."