Announcements
- Indiana University announces $1.1 million fund establishing world's largest student prize for software, technology business plan
A group of investors has created a $1.1 millionfund to support $250,000 in annual prize money to Indiana University Bloomington students who submit the best business plans for a student-led company focused on Internet and software technology. Read more »
- BEST competition moves to into second round
January 23, 2012
The inaugural Building Entrepreneurship in Software and Technology (BEST) competition has moved into the second round of presentation and judging, the School of Informatics and Computing announced today. The 61 original submissions have been narrowed to 20 teams who will formally present their business plans on February 10. From there, the field will again be narrowed to a group that will compete in the third, and final, round of the competition in mid-April. The 20 teams that were selected to move on to round two represent a range of Indiana University schools, including the School of Informatics and Computing, the Kelley School of Business, the Maurer School of Law, the College of Arts and Sciences, and the School of Education.
“The start up ideas represented by the semifinalist teams are truly amazing,” said Dennis Groth, associate dean of undergraduate studies, “There are a diversity of concepts that have great potential for success. In fact, the competition was so strong the judges expanded the field of semifinalists to give more teams the opportunity to refine and advance their ideas.” The deans of both the School of Informatics and Computing and the Kelley School of Business along with the group of 11 investors in BEST – Matt Ferguson, CEO of CareerBuilder, Scott Dorsey CEO and co-founder of Exact Target, and Mary Delaney, CEO of Luceo Solutions, LLC, Chris Baggott, Compendium Software chairman and ExactTarget co-founder; Cheng Wu, chairman of Azuki Systems; Scott Etzler, CEO of Intercall; David Ferguson, partner at Ferguson and Ferguson; Steve Ferguson, chairman of the Cook Group; Mat Orrego, CEO of Cornerstone Information Systems; Eric Taylor, CEO of Taylor Building Corporation; and Tony Armstrong, CEO of the IURTC—reviewed and selected the semifinalist teams.
The competition, with its 250K in annual prize money, was launched in September 2011. A group of investors created a $1.1 million fund to support a competition for Indiana University Bloomington students who submit business plans for a student-led company focused on Internet and software technology. The annual prize is the largest in the world offered by a university solely to its students in a business plan competition. The first-place winner will be guaranteed at least $100,000 to launch their company, with the remaining prize money distributed among selected finalists.
