Are you a USC student with a startup idea or invention? Enter the USC Stevens Student Innovator Showcase business competition to win funding to take your concept further.
The USC Stevens Center for Innovation is currently seeking applications from students to compete in the 10th annual USC Stevens Student Innovator Showcase. Applications for the Showcase are being accepted online at http://stevens.usc.edu/events/student-innovator-showcase until Sept. 2.
The Student Innovator Showcase is USC Stevens’ annual flagship event where USC students in all disciplines present their startup ideas to faculty and leaders from the entrepreneur and business community, competing for thousands of dollars in USC-sponsored prizes.
It will be held from 9 a.m. to 3 p.m. Oct. 7 on the Allan Hancock Foundation Building lawn and feature keynote speaker Mark Stevens, a USC trustee, donor, alumnus and one of Silicon Valley’s top venture capitalists. The event is open to all USC students and Trojan Family Weekend attendees.
Last year, more than $25,000 were awarded to six student teams with innovations in all disciplines included health care and medical devices. The 2015 winners included entrepreneurial-minded USC undergraduate and graduate students from the Keck School of Medicine of USC, USC Viterbi School of Engineering, USC Marshall School of Business, USC Dornsife College of Letters, Arts and Sciences, and the USC Annenberg School for Communication and Journalism. The annual competition has distributed more than $86,000 in prizes to USC students since it began in 2007.
For the all-day event, student teams will spend the morning presenting their startup ideas and prototypes to event attendees and guest judges from the business community. The top scoring teams will advance to an afternoon finalist round where each will give a 3-minute pitch about their businesses. To select the final awards, the pitches then will be scored by the expert judging panel. Past judges have included representatives from Dun & Bradstreet, Idealab, Facebook, Fandango, Larta Institute, PARC Place Program Management, Tatum, USC Marshall School of Business and USC Stevens Center for Innovation.
by Peijean Tsai