HOW iSTART'S ONLINE COMMUNITY HELPS STUDENT ENTREPRENEURS PROMOTE THEIR IDEAS THROUGH SPONSORED COMPETITIONS

Entrepreneurial community grows among students, universities and businesses 
who tap iStart for ideas, networking

iStart, a customizable Web-based platform that simplifies how organizations market and administer business competitions worldwide, is picking up speed as students access the site to fulfill their dreams of becoming successful entrepreneurs.

iStart.org is a single resource that allows student entrepreneurs to share ideas and gain access to an international network of competitions and mentors. For administrators, the platform helps with complex tasks, including managing and monitoring applicant entries, establishing judging criteria and conducting online judging.

 

Since its launch in 2010, the website, hosted by the Kauffman Foundation, has gathered more than 1,200 businesses ideas from 44 countries, including Albania, Kenya, Afghanistan, Israel and Ukraine. Business idea categories include Internet (websites), Information Technology, Life Sciences, Social Entrepreneurship, Services, Green, Materials, Consumer Goods and Energy.

"We believe experiential opportunities are important for entrepreneurs to network and learn - especially for students and others in the idea phase. iStart creates a network of opportunities for student and aspiring entrepreneurs to get global exposure, make connections and learn through competitions," said Lesa Mitchell, vice president of Advancing Innovation at the Kauffman Foundation. "With their ideas accessible to mentors and investors and potential teaming partners, entrepreneurs can more quickly gain momentum in their business planning process."

Some 40 different competitions hosted by businesses and universities globally are currently using iStart. Rice University utilizes the platform for its annual intercollegiate business plan competition, which has the largest judging panel and distributes the most prize money of any such competition in the world. Other competitions include the Harvard College Innovation Challenge, Emerging Postdoctoral Entrepreneur Award and Kellogg Cup.

Said Katie Petersen, who manages the iStart program for the Kauffman Foundation.

"Business plan, pitch and idea competitions play a key role in entrepreneurial education and often kick-start an idea for an aspiring entrepreneur. That's why we want to make these competitions more accessible to students and easier for administrators.  Our customizable platform is one-of-a-kind, and we hope becomes the go-to site for entering business plan competitions around the world, browsing abstracts and networking with innovative, energized entrepreneurs. We want to help make dreams a reality."

To learn more, visit: www.iStart.org.  

COMMENTARY:  

iSTART

 iStart creates a network of opportunities for student and aspiring entrepreneurs to get global exposure, make connections and learn through competitions. You never know who might like your idea, help you get it launched or funded.  This is a very cool idea if you would like to share your idea with the rest of the world.  

iStarts FAQ page answers most of the questions.  

• iStart is for: 
  • Competition Hosts (Non-profits, for-profit individuals or firms)
  • Competition Participants or Competitors (Students, beginning entrepreneurs)
• If I wish to participate in a competition, what do I need to do?  You must submit an abstract. The individual, firm or organization hosting the competition will establish guidelines for you to follow.
• How much does it cost?
  • Competition Hosts - It varies. Here are some general guidelines to help you budget:
    • Nonprofit partners pay a per-competition fee equal to 5 percent of sponsorship money raised and then anywhere from $500 to $5,000, depending on the size of the competition’s prize pool.
    • For-profit partners pay $5,000 per competition; $15,000 for unlimited competitions for one year; or $25,000 for unlimited competitions and the ability to keep submissions from being displayed on the public portal for up to six months.
    • iStart provides you and your staff with efficiencies and consistency that will save hours of work and enhance your competition’s overall reputation. It’s worth the investment.
  • Competition Participants or Competitors - No, not a penny. In this economy, everyone deserves a break. This is yours.
• Is iStart only for business plan competitions?  No, you can have idea competitions, pitch competitions, etc. Our minimum requirement is that participants submit an abstract. The length of that abstract is up to you. It can be a paragraph or it can be five pages.

TIP: If you would like to host a competition and short on cash, recruit a sponsor, such as a corporation, patent attorney, angel investors, VC firms, celebrities and entrepreneurs, anyone with money, to cover the cost. The organization, firm or individual sponsoring the competition will get targeted exposure for as long as the competition is active, and you will have your site paid for.  It’s a win-win!

THE KAUFFMAN FOUNDATION

If you are a young student or entrepreneur, you need to know about the Kauffman Foundation. If you are not familiar with the Kauffman Foundation, I clipped this off of their website.

OVERVIEW

The Ewing Marion Kauffman Foundation was established in the mid-1960s by the late entrepreneur and philanthropist Ewing Marion Kauffman. Based in Kansas City, Missouri, the Kauffman Foundation is among the thirty largest foundations in the United States with an asset base of approximately $2 billion.

Our vision is to foster “a society of economically independent individuals who are engaged citizens, contributing to the improvement of their communities.” In service of this vision, and in keeping with our founder’s wishes, we focus our grant making and operations on two areas: advancing entrepreneurship and improving the education of children and youth. We carry out our mission through four programmatic areas: Entrepreneurship, Advancing Innovation, Education, and Research and Policy.

Though all major foundation donors were entrepreneurs, Ewing Kauffman was the first such donor to direct his foundation to support entrepreneurship, recognizing that his path to success could and should be achieved by many more people. Today, the Kauffman Foundation is the largest American foundation to focus on entrepreneurship and has more than fifteen years of in-depth experience in the field. Leaders from around the world look to us for entrepreneurship expertise and guidance to help grow their economies and expand human welfare.

Our Entrepreneurship team works to catalyze an entrepreneurial society in which job creation, innovation, and the economy flourish. We work with leading educators, researchers, and other partners to further understanding of the powerful economic impact of entrepreneurship, to train the nation’s next generation of entrepreneurial leaders, to develop and disseminate proven programs that enhance entrepreneurial skills and abilities, and to improve the environment in which entrepreneurs start and grow businesses. In late 2008, the Foundation embarked on a long-term, multimillion-dollar initiative known as Kauffman Laboratories for Enterprise Creation, which, through a set of innovative programs, is seeking to accelerate the number and success of high-growth, scale firms.

The Ewing Marion Kauffman Foundation is often referred to as one of the largest foundations in the United States—or as the world's largest foundation devoted to entrepreneurship. Both are true, thanks to Ewing Kauffman's generosity and foresight. However, these "largest" factoids may give the false impression that we can influence society just by virtue of our size or spending power. I would like to convey how small we really are.

First, in terms of assets: Although our endowment of nearly $2.1 billion does place us among the country's thirty largest private foundations, others like the Ford Foundation ($11.4 billion) and the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation ($29.2 billion) are much larger. The John D. and Catherine T. MacArthur Foundation, sometimes seen as being in our bracket, has almost three times the assets with $5.5 billion. Next, in terms of spending power: From endowment income we spend about $90 million per year on grants, programs, and related expenses. That is a sizable sum, yet it pales in comparison to the amounts spent by public agencies in each of our fields, entrepreneurship and youth education.

In support of entrepreneurship, for instance, the Department of Defense spent over $1 billion last year solely on Small Business Innovative Research (SBIR) grants and related tech transfer grants to young companies. The U.S. Small Business Administration (SBA) had a budget of $807 million, with state and local agencies plus private donors chipping in hundreds of millions more to help run the SBA's network of Small Business Development Centers. Also, most states and metropolitan areas now have their own initiatives as well. Pennsylvania recently claimed a total of $2.8 billion of programs and grants for economic development, not all of it going to entrepreneurship, but far more in one state than the Kauffman Foundation can spend across fifty states.

Finally, consider our staff size: The people at this Foundation are bright and creative, but there are fewer than ninety on the payroll. In the Kansas City region alone, hundreds of businesses and nonprofits have staffs larger than ours. At most universities we work with, the marching bands are larger. In short, we cannot hope to make much impact through the sheer force of dollars and numbers at our disposal. If we were merely to blow our own horns, no matter how skillfully, we'd barely be heard more than a few blocks from the stadium. This is why we talk so much about the importance of "leverage," a concept not as simple as it may seem.

ENTREPRENEURSHIP.ORG

If you are a student or young entrepreneur you need to now about  Entrepreneurship.org, which is sponsored by The Kauffman Foundation.  The site provides a huge amount of information and support to foster entrepreneurship throughout the world.  I can't list everything they do, but it is well worth visiting.  They are famous for sponsoring entrepreneurial events throughout the world including Global Entrepreneurship Week (GEW)), a symposium held in November of each year for entrepreneurs from throughout the world.  I clipped this from the GOW site.   

Like most—if not all—new ventures, it started with an idea. What if there were a global movement to inspire people everywhere to embrace entrepreneurship?

For three straight years now, Global Entrepreneurship Week has been a rallying point for thousands of organizations working together to strengthen economies while changing the world around them. During that time, more than 17 million people have taken part in 95,000 events, activities and competitions all designed to help them explore their potential as innovators, and for some, even launch their own startups.

“Global Entrepreneurship Week has grown into a worldwide movement that educates millions about entrepreneurship and the personal and professional fulfillment of starting your own enterprise,” said Carl Schramm, president and CEO of the Ewing Marion Kauffman Foundation, who co-founded GEW along with Enterprise UK. “We encourage everyone to take part in a Global Entrepreneurship Week activity to promote innovation, creativity, job creation and economic growth.”

In 2010, the campaign grew to include 104 countries, enjoying the participation and support of prominent leaders, including: U.S. Secretary of State Hillary Clinton, UK Prime Minister David Cameron, Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, Portugese President Anibal Cavaco da Silva and more than a dozen economic ministers on six continents.

This year, GEW occurs from November 14 – 20, spurring new ideas, ingenuity and firm creation through more than 40,000 local, national and global activities. Leading the way is an interesting collection of activities that will continue to evolve in the weeks and months ahead, including:

GEW culminates in the Global Student Entrepreneurship Awards.  Here are some videos of their last two.  They are religious events as you will see.

 

 

Created by the Ewing Marion Kauffman Foundation, Entrepreneurship.org was formed as a free, online international resource designed to help build entrepreneurial economies.

Entrepreneurship.org features a vast array of content and resources to assist entrepreneurs, business mentors, policy makers, academics and investors through each phase of the entrepreneurial process. The content ranges from resources entrepreneurs need to launch a company to policies and research that has been conducted regarding entrepreneurship.

The website also has a large amount of supportive content that relates to entrepreneurship activities, policies and research from around the word. These findings and updates can be found on Entrepreneurship.org’s Sandbox,  e360 blog, Events, Resource Center, Entrepreneurship Law, Medical Entrepreneurship and Policy Forum.

Courtesy of The Kaufmann Foundation

Comments

[Double Glazing]

The Kauffman Foundation is searching for the world's most promising new companies for its second annual Startup Open competition, a global competition to identify the world's best start ups.

[party bags]

Brilliant post! I'm looking forward for more updates. Keep up the good work and more power to iStart.