June 10, 2005
Purdue, Lilly Endowment again sponsor three $50K biz plan contests
WEST LAFAYETTE, Ind. – For the second year, Purdue University and Lilly Endowment are sponsoring business plan competitions in Fort Wayne, Westville and West Lafayette to help create and expand the Indiana companies that will provide future jobs in the state.
Each of the three Opportunity for Indiana Business Plan Competition venues offers a minimum prize purse of $50,000 – $25,000 for first place, $15,000 for second and $10,000 for third. Local sponsorships might increase the prize amounts and add professional services for the winners.
Don Blewett, associate director of Purdue's Burton D. Morgan Center for Entrepreneurship, said the competitions aim both to give entrepreneurs in the business community at large the tools for success and to spur the state's economic development.
"This is the second year Lilly Endowment is enabling us to grow the entrepreneurship culture across Indiana," Blewett said. "There's an opportunity for fledgling entrepreneurs to win real cash and obtain a fundamental grasp of what it takes to expand a successful business or start one from the ground up.
"Our message to potential entrants is: Think now about the business or expansion you'd like to propose and get your team together. The first deadline is Aug. 1 and only requires that you register online. The competition sites will be offering workshops on the fundamentals of business and how to put a business plan together."
Deadlines for the three competitions are:
• Aug. 1 – Teams register at http://www.purdue.edu/discoverypark/opportunity.
• Aug. 15 – Business plan workshops begin.
• Sept. 26 – Business plan executive summary due. Fifteen semifinalists will be chosen to write full business plans.
• Oct. 10 – Fifteen semifinalists notified.
• Oct. 31 – Full business plans due.
• Nov. 14 – A minimum of five finalists chosen for presentations at the three competition locations.
The competitions, which take the form of PowerPoint presentations and fielding questions from a panel of judges, will take place at Kettler Hall at the Indiana University-Purdue University Fort Wayne campus on Nov. 29; the Purdue Research Park and the Burton D. Morgan Center for Entrepreneurship in West Lafayette on Nov. 30; and the Library-Student-Faculty Building, Room LSF2, at Purdue North Central on Dec. 1.
Teams will be judged on the basis of technology, product and path to market.
At least six workshops on the fundamentals of business will be offered at each of the competition locations beginning Aug. 15. Each location will determine local workshop offerings, but areas covered will include finance, legal issues, marketing and preparing a business plan. Workshop times and locations will be announced at the competition Web site.
Local sponsors for the competitions are Indiana University-Purdue University Fort Wayne, the Purdue Research Park, and Purdue University North Central and Purdue University Calumet, which are jointly sponsoring the Purdue North Central competition. Additional sponsors, such as law and accounting firms, are being sought for local sponsorship and to provide in-kind services to winning teams. The Indiana Small Business Development Centers also are associate sponsors.
Blewett said the competitions are open to Indiana startups and businesses that want to expand. Entrants from outside Indiana can enter if they commit to locate within the state. Participants can enter any one of the three competitions.
The Burton D. Morgan Center for Entrepreneurship is the first of six centers in Purdue's Discovery Park. The other centers are the Birck Nanotechnology Center, Bindley Bioscience Center, Discovery Learning Center and e-Enterprise Center. The Center for Advanced Manufacturing, Regenstrief Center for Healthcare Engineering and the Purdue Homeland Security Institute are administratively housed in the e-Enterprise Center. The new biomedical engineering building also will be located in Discovery Park.
The Lilly Endowment funds that are sponsoring the competition are part of a $3.5 million, three-year grant, called Opportunity for Indiana, that aims to provide more opportunities and good jobs for graduates of the state's colleges, universities, technical schools and high schools.
Jerry M. Woodall, director of the Burton D. Morgan Center and a distinguished professor of electrical and computer engineering, said, "This competition represents what our center is all about – taking technology with commercial potential to the marketplace."
Inquiries about the competition should be directed to Blewett at (765) 494-4485, blewett@purdue.edu.
Writer: Mike Lillich, (765) 494-2077, mlillich@purdue.edu
Sources: Don Blewett, (765) 494-4485, blewett@purdue.edu
Jerry Woodall, (765) 494-3479, woodall@ecn.purdue.edu
Purdue News Service: (765) 494-2096; purduenews@purdue.edu
Note to Journalists: Video b-roll and competition photographs are available by contacting Mike Lillich, (765) 494-2077, mlillich@purdue.edu
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