In an effort to foster local startup businesses, the city of New Haven has joined the University and the Yale Entrepreneurial Society (YES) in announcing the second annual Y50K Entrepreneurship Competition -- a major business plan competition, with over $100,000 in cash and service prizes to be awarded to winners.
The competition offers teams the opportunity to compete for cash and service prizes by writing a winning business plan and making presentations to a panel of judges selected from the business community. Y50K aims to provide a learning opportunity for aspiring entrepreneurs and to foster the entrepreneurial spirit at Yale and in New Haven. To be eligible to compete, teams must include at least one Yale student, staff or faculty member.
The competition is part of an educational event that began in the fall of 2000 with the $2,000 Y2K Concept Competition. At that time, teams wrote sort summaries of their business ideas and received critical feedback from a panel of distinguished judges on how to further improve their proposals. Last year's winning projects were YellowPen, a web-based knowledge management system, and GenerationNet, a website aimed at teaching young people about key public policy issues.
"With over 41 teams of entrants last year and even more to enter this year, the Y50K marks a positive cultural shift for Yale and could even be said to mark Yale's emergence into the New Economy," says David Pozen, YES president. "Students have embraced the Y50K because it gives them a chance to turn their business ideas into reality. The city of New Haven has embraced the Y50K because it represents a potential driver of local economic growth and everyone feels good about finally catching up to our peers in the area of entrepreneurship."
This year, teams will be competing for over $100,000 in prizes. Judges representing venture capital firms and nonprofit organizations will select winners in both the for-profit and social entrepreneurship (non-profit) categories.
As part of the competition, YES will host a series of six educational seminars, in which successful entrepreneurs and venture finance professionals will teach entrants how to write a business plan and start a new venture. Teams will be matched with professional mentors and will be judged on their executive summaries, which are due Tuesday, Feb. 13; their full business plans, which are due Wednesday, March 28; and on their pitches to the judging panel on the morning of Saturday, April 14. Yale will hold an awards gala the afternoon of April 14 to celebrate the entrepreneurial achievement of Y50K entrants. Information about how to enter is available online at www.y50k.com and www.yes.yale.edu.
As part of YES's efforts to support Yale entrepreneurship and business leadership, the organization is also bringing together students, professors and alumni for "YES New York: The Yale Venture Summit" on Thursday, Feb. 8, 6:30-10 p.m. at The Yale Club of New York City, 50 Vanderbilt Ave. Well over 100 alumni have already signed up for the event.
"YES New York" represents an important step in the creation of a true capital and entrepreneurial network for the Yale community, says Pozen. "Imagine a group of Yale students finding an alumnus to be an angel investor for their business idea, or a Yale alumnus who has a young business finding some students to do her computer programming -- this is the sort of coordination that YES aims to facilitate," he notes, adding that a "YES Boston" program is planned for next fall and a "YES San Francisco" session is being considered.
The Yale Entrepreneurial Society (YES) is the founder and leading organizer of the Y50K. With over 700 members, YES is Yale's largest student organization. As part of its mission to promote new venture creation at Yale and in New Haven, YES sponsors educational events, networking sessions, guest speaker events, conferences and a nationwide alumni network. YES also publishes a monthly magazine and runs a program to match students with local start-up companies and nonprofit organizations that need business help. This spring, YES will open the YES Entrepreneurship Center, a resource center equipped with research workstations, office space and conference rooms.
For more information about YES and the Y50K Entrepreneurship Competition, contact Julian Revie, Yale Entrepreneurial Society, by phone at (203) 436-0119, or by email at julian.revie@yale.edu. Additional information is also available on the YES web sites, www.yes.yale.edu/yes and www.Y50K.com.
-- By Thomas R. Violante
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