Greetings, Round 1 results have been tabulated and the Round 2 Competitors have been posted. See them here: www.dukestartupchallenge.org/2011-2012/Round-2 This information is for student teams. We will notify alumni/faculty/staff teams of next steps in a separate email next week. A few notes on the results: - If you haven't seen it before, you can see the summary statistics on the competition here: http://blog.dukegen.com/2012/02/over-100-teams-in-13th-duke-start-up.html - We had a record 300 judges this year and at least 7 judges scored each entry. - Different sets of judges judged each track. So if your team was in two tracks (a functional one and a special interest track) then you were judged by two different sets of judges. - We will be releasing feedback through the YouNoodle system in the next few days. For many teams, the feedback is very helpful. Please let us know if you don’t receive your feedback by March 9. - A team can advance to Round 2 in multiple tracks. In particular, Special Interest Tracks are meant to serve as an “additional shot” at becoming a finalist. For all of you: - We will be sending you a feedback survey next week on your Round 1 experience. You will also be able to reserve a free t-shirt through the survey. - Next week, on March 7th, we’ll have our 9th DukeGEN Multi-City Networking Event in 12 cities. Please consider joining us. More info at www.dukegen.com/events. This is a great way to connect with entrepreneurial students and alumni. For those of you continuing in the competition, read on. ***Round 2 Info - Round 2 Deliverables are described on this page: www.dukestartupchallenge.org/About-Us/rules (Scroll about halfway down to the section called “Round 2” underneath “Spring Competition Process”.) - In particular, by March 21st at 9am ET, you need to provide all of the following: (Private info) - Pitch Deck (powerpoint) and/or Business Plan (document) -- we will send more info on where to submit this. (Public info) - Video of Investor Pitch (Up to 10 minutes), posted on YouTube and linked to on your Public Page - Text of your Idea Summary on your Public Page - Put this public info on your own Public Page on our website. See the sample Public Page. We will create a web page for each of you on our website. You will have the ability to create content and directly edit the page, embed your youtube video, and update your information. Action Item: Please provide us a Gmail address, as soon as you can, for anybody on your team that is going to be creating/editing your public page. https://docs.google.com/spreadsheet/viewform?formkey=dGRpUkc2bUg0M3FNeVJrX0J5X0RTSUE6MQ#gid=0 Your public page should be finished by the March 21st 9am deadline Your Public Page will be viewed by judges as one set of information for their consideration. But it will also be viewed by the larger Duke Global Entrepreneurship Network (DukeGEN) community which has about 4,000 members, mostly Duke alumni and students. And it will be publicly available, so other non-Duke people may see it as well. Everyone will be able to vote on your startup using the People’s Choice vote on our Facebook page. - For further updates on the competition, you will be added to a sympa email listserv for Round 2 competitors. We will also post the information on our Round 2 Competitor Info page: www.dukestartupchallenge.org/2011-2012/Round-2/competitor-info - If you have questions email me at hwr2@duke.edu, and copy student presidents olgun.kukrer@fuqua.duke.edu and chris.radford@duke.edu *** Grand Finale Info Teams that make it out of Round 2 will participate in the Grand Finale. The Grand Finale is on Friday, April 20th at 7:30pm in Geneen Auditorium at Fuqua. - The top 3 teams will be competing for the $50,000 Grand Prize, live on stage. - The remaining 6 teams (5 track winners and 1 Round 2 people’s choice winner) will compete for the Best Elevator Pitch prize (1 minute pitch). - Grand Finale judges are being invited on a rolling basis. We will let you know who they are as we get closer to the date. - If you are in the Top 3, and you have a relationship, either financial or personal, with any of the live judges, it should be noted. Judges who have a relationship with a Top 3 team may be recused, if it’s determined the relationship may affect their ability to be impartial. This is at the sole discretion of the organizers. Thank you to everyone for participating. Regardless of whether you made it to Round 2, we hope you will use this experience to learn and continue on your own entrepreneurial path. We hope to stay in touch with all of you through the Duke Global Entrepreneurship Network. Howie Rhee '04 Advisor, Duke Start-Up Challenge Managing Director, Fuqua's Center for Entrepreneurship and Innovation Student Leadership Team Olgun Kukrer (Fuqua '12) Chris Radford (Pratt '12) Nancy Fechnay (Nicholas/Fuqua '14) Janet Ng (Nicholas '13) Vidhan Agrawal (Pratt '12) Dovina Qu (Pratt '12) Meghan Pelley (Fuqua '13) Navid Samadani-McQuirk (Fuqua '13) |
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Sponsors Thank you to this year's sponsors:         |
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