Plenty of promising business ideas have been floated and funded at the University of Mary Washington’s annual Eagle Innovation Startup Pitch Competition – a kid-friendly dental flosser, a mobile coffee café, an all-in-one wellness app.
The new Eagle Egg Innovation Fund promises to take this spring’s event to the next level, with a top prize of $10,000 to help the winning team get its proposed venture off of the ground. The increased monetary support for the pitch competition – which also includes cash prizes for second- and third-place finishers, plus four $500 Concept Awards – is designed to pump up the entrepreneurial spirit on campus and bring more students’ business ambitions to life. And the Eagle Egg Innovation Fund is expected to continue to grow as it attracts additional supporters.
Applications for the $500 Concept Awards, giving four student teams a financial headstart on perfecting their business plans, are due by midnight on Friday, Feb. 27. First held in 2019, the Eagle Innovation Startup Pitch Competition is scheduled for Thursday, April 23, from 5 to 8 p.m., in the Hurley Convergence Center’s Digital Auditorium. It’s open to Concept Award-winners and all full-time UMW students across disciplines.
“Small awards create excitement. Larger awards create traction,” said Filiz Tabak, dean of the College of Business, which hosts the competition. “For many UMW students, even a few hundred dollars for prototyping can be transformational.”
Launched with a founding gift from UMW alumnus Bryan Eckle ’96, the Eagle Egg Innovation Fund goes well beyond that. Among other benefits, the added capital for the contest ensures those with limited financial means aren’t excluded.
Eckle, who earned a degree in business administration from Mary Washington, serves on the College of Business Executive Advisory Board. Co-founder of Summit2Sea Consulting and chief solutions officer at cBEYONData, he spoke recently with students in an Entrepreneurial Venture Creation class, among the courses included in UMW’s management and entrepreneurship major, and entrepreneurship minor programs.
Concept Award applicants – individuals or teams of up to five members – are invited to submit a PowerPoint deck of as many as five slides representing their proposed project. Entries will be evaluated on innovation, feasibility, market impact and execution. In addition to $500 to begin developing their ideas, winners receive faculty and industry mentorship, and are eligible to compete for the $10,000 top prize in April’s Eagle Innovation Startup Pitch Competition.
The spring contest pits presenters against one another in a quest to impress a team of experienced judges, who provide feedback, name three top contenders and award monetary prizes to help them grow their entrepreneurial ideas from concept to fruition. Competitors also may present their projects at UMW’s Research and Creativity Day on Friday, April 24.
“This shifts student learning from theoretical to experiential,” said Tabak, who points to the power of the Eagle Egg Innovation Fund and the Eagle Innovation Startup Pitch Competition to encourage regional economic development partnerships. “Even without launching a venture, students with entrepreneurial experience interview better. They have real-life stories to share, demonstrate initiative, understand financial impact and think cross-functionally.”
To apply for a $500 Concept Award, students must complete the online Eagle Egg Innovation Fund Submission Form by Friday, Feb. 27.
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