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$35,000 in Prizes

Led by students at the Entrepreneur’s Club, The Elevator Pitch Competition highlights the University of Ottawa’s top startups each year. As part of Global Entrepreneurship Week, the competition allows both those in business with “traction” as well as entrepreneurs that are still in the early stages of “validating” their ideas to pitch to a panel of judges for a chance to win prize money and progression services.

The evening also includes a networking portion as well as a keynote speaker who provides inspiration, advice and insight into their personal successes and challenges as an entrepreneur. Students apply to one of two categories: Validation or Traction recognizing a need to applaud and reward those early in the process, as well as those who are already in business having achieved significant milestones.

Applications must be submitted by October 30th, 2022 11:59 pm and includes both a written application and a 2-minute video pitch submission.

Final Event Date: November 15th, 2022 at 5:30 pm

Categories

IDEA STAGE (3 FINALISTS)

This category is designed for students who want to pitch their idea, benefiting from the pitching experience and the questions and feedback from the judges. To compete in this category you cannot have realized any traction to date such as sales or external funding, nor have you developed a final prototype or beta version. You may have started customer validation, but it’s really just an idea at this point!

Prize: $1,000 for 1st place and professional services as described in the Eligibility Criteria and Competition Details.

VALIDATION COMPETITION (3 FINALISTS)

This category encourages and rewards early business ideas and business models. These ideas are still conceptual but work has been done to validate or build early prototypes (though customer validation is enough to enter and
strongly encouraged). Applicants must still be at the idea stage and cannot have any realized traction to date such as funding; sales; acceptance into an accelerator; or, incubator program.

Prize: $3,000 for 1st place and professional services as described in the Eligibility Criteria and Competition Details.

TRACTION (3 FINALISTS)

This category is for applicants whose business is further along the entrepreneurial path with achieved milestones and will compete on the bases of an executive summary and pitch. Applicants in this category already have some realized form of traction with their business such as:

  • Technical and/or market validation completed
  • Early customer adoption
  • Prototype finalized/website operational
  • Early sales or beta clients
  • and/or, acceptance into an accelerator or incubator program.

Prizes

Cash Prizes include :

  • Idea : First place : $1,000
  • Validation: First place: $3,000
  • Traction:
    • First place: $10,000 and professional services as described in the Eligibility Criteria and Competition Details
    • Second Place: $5,000 and professional services as described in the Eligibility Criteria and Competition Details
    • Third Place: $1,000
  • People’s Choice award : $2,000 and professional services as described in the Eligibility Criteria and Competition Details

Applications must be submitted by October 30th, 2022 11:59 pm and includes both a written application and video pitch submission.

For more information contact daze@telfer.uOttawa.ca.

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