Business Concept Competition, Spring 2014

Attention Chico State students. Just a few days left to sign up for this year’s Business Concept Competition.  The last day to get your abstracts in is Thursday, March 13 at 5:00 p.m.  Make sure to send in your ideas via e-mail to pstraus@csuchico.edu. The contest, in case you didn't know, is open to all currently enrolled students, graduate and undergraduate, in all colleges.

A quick note -- this semester's entrance requirements are a bit different than in preceding years.  In the past, we asked each entrant to send in a short PowerPoint; this semester, we are asking each contestant to send in a brief one to two page abstract of their idea.  You can find rules and submission guidelines at the Center for Entrepreneurship website.

But that's not the extent of the changes.  This year the event won't culminate with the Chico State finals on April 3 (6:00 pm in Glenn 112).  No the difference comes eight days later, when our top two finishers will present to another panel along with the top two finishers from three other California state universities -- Humboldt, Sacramento, and Sonoma.  That event, which has been dubbed The Future Four, will take place on Friday, April 11 (4-7 pm in Colusa 100).

By the way, one aspect that hasn't changed is that each finalist in the Chico State event will be presenting a five-minute power point presentation to a panel of distinguished judges. The same format: five minute PowerPoint followed by questions from a panel of judges will occur at The Future Four.

We are hoping The Future Four will become an annual event.  It is the culminating event of this year's Chico State eWeek 2014, about which I will write more in the near future.  For now, I want to acknowledge the cosponsors of The Future Four, my colleagues at the three other schools: Nancy Vizenor of the Institute for Entrepreneurship Education, Humboldt State University; Seung Bach of the Center for Entrepreneurship, Sacramento State University and Kirsten Ely of the Community for Entrepreneurial Leadership & Learning (CELL), Sonoma State University.  They have been a joy to work with and have already committed to doing this again next year in Sonoma. So the fun has just begun.

But, again, for you students to participate, you MUST get your abstracts in no later than this Thursday, March 13 at 5:00 pm.