Georgia Institute of Technology

Competition

The InVenture Prize @ Georgia Tech is an innovation competition for undergraduate students at Georgia Tech. Students can work independently or in teams to develop and present inventions, which will be judged by experts. Up to 10 inventors will be selected from Preliminary Rounds to advance to the Final Round. In the Final Round, two winners, either individuals or teams, will be selected.

Registration: Individual students and student teams must submit an "Intent to Compete" as soon as possible but not later than November 22nd, 2009. Competitors must then "Register" for the competition between November 23rd and December 18th, 2009.

InVenture Prize School: All students who are interested in competing or have submitted an Intent to Compete are invited to InVenture Prize School, a series of seminars and coaching sessions to help prepare for registration and the competition.

Inventor Notebooks: The organizers strongly encourage students to keep an inventor’s notebook. To this end, one notebook will be provided to each student who has indicated an intent to compete. Please contact after you have submitted your Intent to Compete to get your notebook. Read the instructions for how to keep your notebook.

Prototype Awards: Approximately five Prototype Awards of up to $500 each will be given to assist you in making a prototype. To be eligible for an award, you should submit a 500 word or less statement answering the question: "How will a Prototype Award help me/us win the InVenture Prize competition." Students should submit their statements and a detailed budget to by Dec 18th. Applicants must complete the "Invention Details" section of the registration form to be considered prior to the deadline--Awards will be made on a rolling basis and all will be announced by Dec 21st. Awards can only be used to buy materials and supplies for prototype construction. Students participating in project courses where funds are provided by Georgia Tech are NOT eligible for this award. Be sure to include names and emails of your team members. Presenting a prototype is not necessary, but may be helpful. Judges will not be informed of who the Prototype Award Winners are.

Competition: There will be one or more Preliminary Rounds in the competition with the number of rounds selected by the organizers to accommodate the number of registered inventors. In the Preliminary Rounds, open only to judges and the Georgia Tech community, inventors will pitch their ideas in an open gallery setting. In the Final Round, open to the GT community and the public, approximately 10 finalist inventors, selected from the Preliminary Rounds, will give a 2½ minute presentation of their invention followed by 2½ minutes of questions and answers (in series) to a panel of four judges. The judges will narrow the field to no more than four inventions. A follow up dialog with a panel of "decision makers" will determine the first and second place winners.

Eligibility: Current Georgia Tech undergraduate students can enter individually or in teams of two or more. Fall 2008, Spring 2009, Summer 2009, or Fall 2009 BS graduates are eligible to compete. A student can only participate in one invention either as an individual or as a member of a team

Invention Requirements: Inventions must be original student inventions. Co-invention with non-students or any others must be fully disclosed during registration to determine if the contribution of others was substantial. Output and products from student course projects, campus research, and co-op are eligible with full disclosure about the resources and people involved. Software is eligible. Prototypes (a physical demonstration of your invention) are very helpful but not required. See the Intellectual Propery section for more details. All registrants are bound by the Georgia Tech Honor Code to fully disclose the information requested.

Judging: Judges in the Preliminary Rounds and on the four-judge panel in the Final Round will have expertise in engineering, science, computing, and business. The criteria used by these expert judges in their evaluation are:

Innovation
Is the idea novel? How does it compare to other ideas which address the same problem?

Marketability
Is there a demand for the invention? Will people buy it?

Market Size
How big is the market for the invention?

Inventor Passion
How driven is the inventor or team by the idea?

Probability of Becoming a Successful Business
Would someone invest in helping make the invention a reality?

The "decision makers", all successful business people, will apply more holistic criteria to determine if your invention merits investment by The InVenture Prize. They will select the two winners based on the inventors’ responses to broader questions such as "What would winning (or losing) The InVenture Prize competition mean to you?"

The judging process consists of one or more Preliminary Rounds followed by a Final Round.

Preliminary Rounds
The faculty organizers and other faculty volunteers will work with students prior to the Preliminary Rounds to help them focus their thinking and improve their presentations. In the Preliminary Rounds, each judge will give a holistic score on a scale of 1-10 for each inventor along with their comments on each of the five specific criteria. This scoring gives all the inventors feedback on their invention and presentation and will determine which inventions will advance to the Final Round. Provisional US patent applications will, with the assistance of the inventors, be filed by Georgia Tech on behalf of the top 20 inventors selected in the Preliminary Rounds.

People’s Choice Award
Members of the Georgia Tech Community attending the Preliminary Rounds can participate in the People’s Choice Awards by voting for their favorite 3 inventors. These cash awards will be made at the conclusion of each round.

Judges Official Scoring
In the Final Round, the four expert judges will meet in private to evaluate the inventors on the 5 criteria. A score will be assigned to each category for each invention. The sum total score will be assigned. Up to four inventions will be selected by the expert judges to be interviewed by the "decision makers" who will select the two winners.

Prizes: $15,000 will be awarded to the first place winner and $10,000 will be awarded to the second place winner. Winners may be teams or individuals. In addition, Georgia Tech Research Corporation (GTRC) will engage patent counsel to work with the winners to review the invention for patentability as well as prepare and file a United States Patent application, if applicable. GTRC will pay for the associated fees. The finalists and winners will be promoted at Georgia Tech events, online, in the student paper and other GT publications and around campus. Additionally, winners will have access to free business services such as legal or patent services (including the aforementioned free patent filing courtesy of the Georgia Tech Office of Technology Licensing), market vetting, and opportunities for raising capital etc. Students will also be eligible to receive a paid summer internship to develop their ideas further.