Ball State University's second annual The NEXT Big Thing entrepreneurial program is inviting Muncie residents to compete against students to create the best business idea.
The Ball State Center for Media Design and the Entrepreneurship Program are collaborating to help students turn ideas into business ventures while competing for thousands of dollars awarded to the best projects, Jeff Hornsby, co-director of The NEXT Big Thing, said.
The program starts Thursday and is open to Muncie community members as well as Ball State students.
"Students will present their ideas, and the prize money will be an incentive for them to do a good job and hopefully start their own business," Hornsby said.
Ball State was approached by the Innovation Connector, a Muncie business that helps entrepreneurs, to see if the program could be opened to the community and include Muncie residents, Katie Frederick, executive director of the Innovation Connector, said. Innovation Connector focuses on using technological ideas that can help develop business growth in the community.
"The program will be a great learning experience for community members to gain knowledge and be able to look at other ideas," Frederick said.
Last year, about 20 students participated, but this year about 60 students will be participating, Hornsby said. In total, 12 Muncie residents will compete in The NEXT Big Thing competition, Frederick said.
"Because the competition was in its pilot year we intentionally kept the number of participants small," Hornsby said. "Last year, the competition was also only open to technology students and this year, all entrepreneurship program seniors and about 30 technology students are participating."
The program includes two-hour workshops every Tuesday and Thursday for five weeks. Additional workshops will be added so contestants can develop their feasibility plans and see if their ideas can be taken to the community and be beneficial, Frederick said.
In these workshops, participants learn how to incorporate creativity into their business idea, Hornsby said. They also learn financial aspects of a business and learn how to market their business idea.
The competition will be Nov. 17, and more than $50,000 in prizes will be awarded to the winners of three categories. They are: students with technological ideas, students with non-technology based projects and people from the community.
"The focus of economic development is an important element for what the university and community is about," Hornsby said. "A lot of money is to be earned and our goal is they will take that money and start a business in an effort to promote economic growth."
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