Eligibility

1. At least one UCLA Engineering student (graduate or undergraduate) and one Anderson MBA student must be a member of the team. Non-students may be members of the management team and participate in planning the venture. The maximum size of a team is six (6) students. Prize money distribution will be gated by ITA to the winning teams to enable execution of the business plan.
   • Waivers may be obtained for those teams that participate and complete a set number of workshops and seminars. These requirements include:
     • At least 2 Easton Technology Management Center workshops or seminars
     • At least 3 Technical Entrepreneurial Community workshops
     • One NSF ZAP I-Corps course
2. A student may be a part of more than one business plan to the competition, but can only be a lead member on one of the teams.
3. This competition is for new, independent ventures in the seed, start-up, or early stage. Business plans cannot be venture-backed although friends and family funds are acceptable.
4. Any graduate student, post-doctoral student, or research staff (including anyone else who has an employment appointment with UCLA), must obtain their advisor or PI’s approval before submitting an application to this competition. This approval should be obtained by completing an Invention Reportwith the Office of Intellectual Property and Industry Sponsored Research for the technology that is being submitted to the competition. The Office of Intellectual Property and Industry Sponsored Research can also assist you with any questions regarding inventions and intellectual property.
5. Teams are not allowed to change registered team members after the submission of semifinal plans, although team members can be added.
6. All teams will adhere to the UCLA Student Conduct Code.
7. Any disputes must be submitted in writing to the Competition Program Manager, Schaffer Grimm (sgrimm@ita.ucla.edu). Disputes (including potential disqualification) will be settled in writing at the discretion of the advisory board under the guidance of the Institute for Technology and the Price Center for Entrepreneurial Studies.
8. Each finalist must have participated in a ZAP! Course run by the Innovation Node-Los Angeles prior to the final presentation.

Evaluation Guidelines

Evaluation will take place in the semi-final and final rounds. Judges will evaluate the written executive summaries to determine the finalists. For the finals, judges will evaluate the plans based on the oral presentation by each team. The final decision is based on the judges’ qualitative evaluation and consultations with each other during their deliberation session following the presentations. Judges will ultimately consider the entire business concept looking at overall feasibility, combined with significant capital gains potential, investors, and academic experienced in the entrepreneurial process. There will be four (4) to seven (7) judges per panel at the event.

Terms and Conditions

Due to the nature of the competition, we will not ask judges, reviewers, staff, or the audience to agree to or sign non-disclosure statements for any participant. By participating in the competition, participants agree that neither the UCLA Henry Samueli School of Engineering and Applied Science, the UCLA Anderson School of Management nor their designate organizations assume any liability whatsoever for any disclosures of business plan information which may be made (whether inadvertently or otherwise) by any judge, reviewer, staff member, audience member, or other individual connected with, participating in, viewing, hearing, or receiving information from the competition.

For the finalist presentations at UCLA, each team will be given ten (10) minutes to present their business plan followed by a five (5) minute question and answer session between the presenting team and judges. There will be a few minutes between each presenting team for setup and breakdown.

All public sessions of the competition, including (but not limited to) oral presentations and Q&A are open to the public at large. Any and all of these public sessions may be broadcast to interested persons through the media. Any data or information discussed or divulged in public sessions should be considered information that will likely enter the public realm, and competitors should not assume any right of confidentiality to any data or information discussed, divulged, or presented in these sessions. Neither UCLA, ITA, UCLA Anderson, the Price Center, nor their designate organizations assume any duty to screen or otherwise control the identity of those attending, viewing, or hearing all or part of these public sessions. Participants agree that by entering the competition they have been made aware that such attendees, viewers, and recipients may include members of the media and potential competitors in addition to members of the financial community, students, and faculty.

Equipment provided for presentations includes a built-in multi-media projector and computer with internet access. Participants agree to allow UCLA to record the oral presentations and Q&A sessions.