Our Contest

Please go to http://hicdemoday.eventbrite.com for an official invitation! (Click the image below or the link on the left)

usky innovation Challenge is an annual business strategy competition that facilitates the development of business ideas into market-ready execution strategies.  Through a series of six boot camps, students from across the University are able to engage in different aspects of starting a venture.  Experienced entrepreneurs, domain experts and industry leaders will provide students practical knowledge through real life examples and applications and help facilitate hands-on activities.

The Husky Innovation Challenge will differentiate itself from the typical business plan competition by incorporating strategy development Boot Camps, networking and collaboration events throughout the semester. Mentors will also be sought for competing teams to facilitate and foster entrepreneurial growth. Boot Camp topics range from prototyping, to marketing and financing. Each session will be led by industry professionals who specialize in the topic for each Boot Camp.

The competition will conclude near the end of spring semester with an event called Demo Day. The event will bring together members of the Northeastern Community and will offer food and drinks while competing teams showcase models and prototypes of their ventures at individual booths. Judges, anonymous to the contestants, will evaluate each competing venture for different award categories such as Game Changer Award, Financial Stability, Time to Market Award, Social Change Award, Audience Favorite. (Names of awards may be changed).

We have planned to differentiate this competition from the typical business plan competition by focusing on business models and strategies - systems designed to bring sustainable value to the community rather than written business models. The goal of the HIC is to assist in the development of ideas, concepts and businesses to create or improve business models and strategies.

The program provides teams with unique opportunities to participate in highly educational Boot Camps led by people with a unique background of experience on the topic of focus. Below is a brief outline of the Boot Camp topics that will be made available to students:

• Boot Camp 1 – Identifying Your Startup
• Boot Camp 2 – Marketing
• Boot Camp 3 – Business Model and Strategy Identification
• Boot Camp 4 – Startup Financing
• Boot Camp 5 – Prototyping
• Boot Camp 6 – Launch

All Boot Camps and working events will be recorded to help teams create a video pitch to be included in their final submissions to the Judges towards the end of the competition!

Social Events

In addition to the Boot Camps, students will be able to get to know one another during social outings to restaurants and bars in the area to encourage collaboration and networking. The HIC will also lead contestants to events catering to entrepreneurship as they are announced by Boston area entrepreneurship organizations.

Demo Day

Demo Day will be the final event of the contest and will consist of a demonstration fair at the end of the semester with the conclusion of the competition. The aim will be to allow teams to show off prototypes or demo’s to all members of the University ranging from students to faculty and staff with the judges mixed anonymously into crowd.

The competition will not judge teams and ventures based on a formal business plan. Instead, teams and ventures will be judged based on prototypes that convey a concept and highlights of marketing and finance considerations required to be successful in the given venture. The term “prototype” does not refer to engineering mock-ups of products per se but could be thought-models display on a poster for exhibition.

The Husky Innovation Challenge was designed to attract budding entrepreneurs of all backgrounds. Whether you have a simple idea or concept or a working business, we encourage you to sign up and take full advantage of what the HIC offers.

A few guidelines:

• Teams can present ideas that they’ve been working on over time, or completely come up with new ideas at the start of the competition.
• Teams can consist of two or more students from any one or combination of departments or schools within Northeastern.
• The competition is focused on undergraduate venture ideas.
• Teams can consist of no more than 5 members.
• Single person entrants should contact the HIC organizers to qualify.

Teams are encouraged to design business models as far outside of the box as they would like. While there will be rubrics used by judges at the Demo Day, contestants will not be forced to adopt a specific theme or direction for their submissions. The teams will be presented with the evaluation rubrics at the beginning of spring 2010.

Applications are not currently being accepted.