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, which is Rice University’s internationally-recognized initiative devoted to the support of entrepreneurship, and the Jesse H. Jones Graduate School of Business. This is the 16th year for the competition. In that time, it has grown from nine teams competing for $10,000 in prize money in 2001, to 42 teams from around the world competing for more than $1.5 million in cash and prizes.
In 2015, more than 750 applications were submitted. More than 180 corporate and private sponsors support the business plan competition. Venture capitalists and other investors from around the country volunteer their time to judge the competition, with the majority of the 275+ judges coming from the investment sector. 161 past competitors have gone on to successfully launch their businesses and are still in business today, with another 15 having successful exits. These companies have raised in excess of $1.2 billion in funding.
Worth
Cisco Prizes
- Three Cisco Internet of Everything (IoE) Innovation challenge Prizes
- The three cash prizes will be awarded in the amounts of $100,000, $25,000 and $10,000
- The Cisco IoE Innovation Challenge aims to recognize entrepreneurs that promote and accelerate the adoption of breakthrough technologies, products and services that capture the value of IoE to benefit society.
- Special consideration will be given to business that captures this value while simultaneously benefiting society and this environment.
Other Prizes
- $300,000 Investment Grand prize from The GOOSE society of Texas, the OWL Investment Prize which totaled $285,000 in 2015 and
- The $50,000 US Department of Energy Clean Energy clean Energy Prize
There will also be specific prizes for the best women s health innovation, top energy team, top IT team and Top team led by women
Eligibility
- Graduate students with a business plan for a new start up company are encourage to apply to compete
Deadline: February 19, 2016
To apply and for more information visit here
