Elevator Pitch Contest
McGowan Institute 2012 Annual Scientific Retreat
McGowan Institute - 2012 Scientific Retreat
Nemacolin Woodlands Resort - Farmington, PA
March 4-6, 2012
Once again this year the Office of Enterprise Development (OED) is hosting the "Innovator Elevator Pitch Contest". Space is limited and participation is subject to review. This event will consist of a series of scheduled brief presentations from participating faculty or students approved by the faculty member on the value of their technology to an audience that will include industry representatives and venture capitalists.
Each participant is allotted three minutes to present their "elevator pitch" and may present one slide. Presented technologies should have potential to become start-up companies. Prior to the event, participants will be provided with information on developing an elevator pitch and the opportunity to work with the OED individually to develop the pitch.
An elevator pitch (or elevator speech) is a brief overview of an idea for a product, service, or project. The pitch is so called because it can be delivered in the time span of an elevator ride (say, sixty seconds). The term is typically used in the context of an entrepreneur pitching an idea to a venture capitalist to receive funding. Venture capitalists often judge the quality of an idea and team on the basis of the quality of its elevator pitch, and will ask entrepreneurs for the elevator pitch to quickly weed out bad ideas.
The OED will transfer $7,500 to the winning investigator's account following submission to the OED of a spending plan (project description, budget, timeline) that the OED will approve. The money is only to be spent on activities that further the technology toward commercialization and may include for example market assessment, prototype development and animal testing. The research can be at any stage but must be able to demonstrate that the technology has potential for commercialization. At the completion of the project the investigator will need to submit a report to the OED indicating how the award has been used to bring their technology closer to commercialization. The award is only available to University of Pittsburgh Faculty.
Click Here to register for the elevator pitch.
Participating faculty should contact Paul Petrovich (petrovic@pitt.edu)for coaching on development of their elevator pitch.
NOTE: Applications must be received by February 15, 2012!