Last chance to apply for the biggest — and last — competitions of the academic year!

2018 InVenture Prize campus winners, In-Spire
Elizabeth Tarangelo and Kayla Simon practicing their pitch in the LaunchPad

Have you applied yet for the biggest (and last) competitions of the academic year? There is still a chance through March 13, 2020 to apply for these three competitions, which will be held concurrently on March 27, 2020 at Bird Library. Each event is coordinated by the Blackstone LaunchPad powered by Techstars at Syracuse University:

  • The School of Information Studies’ (iSchool) Raymond von Dran (RvD) iPrize pitch competition, with $40,000 in awards;
  • The Hunter Brooks Watson Spirit of Entrepreneurship Award, with $10,000 in awards;
  • Compete CNY, the regional qualifier for the New York Business Plan Competition, with $87,500 in state awards.

The common app for the iPrize and Hunter Brooks Watson Spirit of Entrepreneurship Award is:  http://bit.ly/competesu2020

The app for Compete CNY and the New York Business Plan Competition is at: https://www.nybpc.org/ Please select Central New York as the region. Student teams will be selected at the Compete CNY regional qualifier to advance to the state competition finals will be May 1, 2020 in Albany, NY. Syracuse University teams have traditionally been high achievers in the state competition, winning more than $150,000 in recent years.

Registrations for all three competitions close on March 13. It is strongly advised that students competing in the iPrize also sign up for Compete CNY through the New York Business Plan Competition.

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Syracuse University team PAANI at last year’s NYBPC (right), competing in the clean tech division of the statewide competition

All three campus competitions run concurrently from 1 p.m. to 6 p.m. on March 27 in Bird Library. The awards announcement and reception will take place at 5 p.m. in the Peter Graham Scholarly Commons on the first floor of the Library.

For more information, or to be assigned a mentor to help with prep work, please e-mail: LaunchPad@syr.edu