The Rice Business Plan Competition is the world’s richest and largest graduate-level student startup competition. It is hosted and organized by the Rice Alliance for Technology and Entrepreneurship. Last year, 42 teams from around the world competed for more than $1.5 million in cash and prizes. The competition is open to Syracuse University graduate students who are working on venture ideas. Learn more here.
The competition offers real-world opportunities to experience:
- Mentoring from investors and experienced entrepreneurs
- Networking with potential venture capitalists and other investors over three days
- High-caliber, experienced judges, the majority of whom are senior level investors, entrepreneurs and industry leaders
- Personalized, individual feedback during three separate sessions as well as on your written business plan before the competition
- Competition against top-ranked and emerging global student-led startups
Any graduate-student startup from any university in any degree program in any country around the world can apply to the RBPC. There are only a few eligibility requirements. To apply:
- There must be at least two current students in your startup
- There must be at least one graduate-level student founder or management team member in your startup
- Your startup cannot have passed certain milestones
- You will fall into one of these sectors:
- Energy, Clean Technology and Sustainability
- Life Science and Healthcare Solutions
- Hard Tech
- Digital Entreprise
- Consumer Products and Services
Interested in applying? Get all the details and competition guidelines here. Create a team account in order to apply by Sunday, January 17, 2021 at 11:59 PM CST. The competition will be April 5 – 9, 2021.
You can email the competition director at rbpc@rice.edu with specific questions not answered on the competition website.