Purdue Seeks Student Business Plan Competition Entries
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As a subscriber you can listen to articles at work, in the car, or while you work out. Subscribe NowThe registration period is open for an annual business event at Purdue University. The Burton D. Morgan Business Plan Competition is designed to highlight student innovations with high-commercialization potential. October 11, 2013
News Release
WEST LAFAYETTE, Ind. – Registration is underway for the 27th annual Burton D. Morgan Business Plan Competition, a $100,000 event that showcases innovative ideas with commercialization potential from Purdue University students.
Entrants have until noon Nov. 1 to sign up for the event, which is scheduled for Feb. 18 at Discovery Park's Burton D. Morgan Center for Entrepreneurship. To register, go online to https://purdue.qualtrics.com/SE/?SID=SV_bKuffHnRmrIHlMF.
“The annual Burton Morgan Business Plan Competition in Purdue's Discovery Park has grown into one of the nation's longest-running university business plan competitions,” said Joseph Pekny, interim director of the Burton D. Morgan Center for Entrepreneurship. “And we're excited that we can offer this competition and $100,000 in cash prizes to Purdue students from any discipline who dream of turning an idea into a successful venture.”
The Gold division is open to all graduate and undergraduate student teams from any discipline. The winner from among the five finalists will receive a $30,000 top prize. In the Black division, five undergraduate teams will compete for a $20,000 top prize.
When the five-week registration process closes, participants have until noon Nov. 4 to submit executive summaries. Semifinalists are announced Dec. 3, and the deadline to file formal business plans is Jan. 17, 2014. Ten finalist teams will be announced in early February for the competition.
For more information, contact Bambrah Miller of the Burton D. Morgan Center at 765-494-1335, BDMCenter@purdue.edu.
Competition sponsors are the Burton D. Morgan Center for Entrepreneurship and Krannert School of Management. Indianapolis-based law firm Ice Miller, which has provided scholarship funding for Purdue's Certificate of Entrepreneurship and Innovation Program, also is offering in-kind services to the competition's top finishers.
The late Burton D. Morgan was a Purdue alumnus who started 50 companies, six of which have become major corporations, including Morgan Adhesives, one of the world's largest makers of pressure-sensitive adhesives. He also was president of Basic Search Co., an idea-development firm, and wrote several books on entrepreneurship.
The entrepreneurship competition started in 1987 with an endowment gift to Purdue from the Burton D. Morgan Foundation. The Morgan Foundation also funded the $7 million, 31,000-square-foot Center for Entrepreneurship.
The Burton D. Morgan Center for Entrepreneurship, through its sponsored initiatives and partnerships – including the Certificate in Entrepreneurship and Innovation, Technology Realization Program, Entrepreneurial Leadership Academy and business plan competitions – aims to stimulate entrepreneurship at Purdue and serves as a state, regional and national resource.
The building also is home to the Purdue Foundry, an entrepreneurship and commercialization hub that opened in July to provide assistance in areas such as product ideation and market analysis as well as business-plan development, alumni and faculty mentoring, and help in finding funding.
Opened in 2004, the 31,000-square-foot, two-story Burton D. Morgan Center for Entrepreneurship was the first building completed in Discovery Park, the university's interdisciplinary research complex for large-scale projects. Source: Purdue Universtiy