The Martin J. Whitman School of Management is accepting applications by September 11 for this year’s Orange Tank Competition, to be held September 30 at 2 p.m. Current students and alumni entrepreneurs from the Whitman School can apply for a chance to pitch their business venture to a panel of accomplished judges and vie for part of the $42,000 in cash prizes. Monetary awards will be given to the ventures finishing in first ($5,000), second ($2,500) and third ($1,000) place in both the student and alumni categories. A grand prize of $25,000 will be awarded to the competition’s top overall finisher among the two first-place ventures, so contestants will be competing for as much as $30,000.
Three alumni and three student ventures will be selected from the applicants to pitch at the competition. Those chosen will have five minutes to pitch, followed by five minutes of Q&A from the judges, who will be looking for:
- Market potential
- Differentiation and economic feasibility
- Ability to protect intellectual property, technology
- Sound execution strategy
- Scalability of the business
- Proposed use of finances
- Expertise and abilities of the founder(s)
- Quality of pitch
All applicants must submit an executive summary using the application form linked below to Todd Moss at tmoss@syr.edu by the deadline. The application can be up to three pages of content to identify your project. All ventures must have a Whitman alumni or student founder or co-founder to apply. Finalists selected to pitch will be notified by Sept. 16, 2022.
Questions should be directed to Todd Moss at tmoss@syr.edu.