More than $50,000 is at stake today in the L.A. Pittenger Student Center as students and community members vie for first place at the second annual The NEXT Big Thing competition.
The goal of the event is to find new concepts that have the potential to become practical businesses.
"I think it's a fantastic way for students and community members to earn money to support their business ideas," David Blackmer, a host of the event from the Center for Media Design, said.
The field has been narrowed from forty-nine ideas to twenty-four and separated into three divisions. One is technology based, another is an open section for general business ideas and the third is a category for community members working with students, Blackmer said. Each division will be judged by a panel of six people.
Judges are looking for well-planned and -crafted concepts, Jennifer Bott, assistant professor and judge in the community division, said.
"We are looking for ideas that reflect understanding of the market and the feasibility of the idea," she said. "I hope it's a very hard choice."
The judges in the technology division will look at how well the understanding of technology plays a role in a business, Jeff Hornsby, a host of the event from the entrepreneurship program, said. The open division will be judged on the overall understanding of business concepts and the market research that went into the idea. The community division, new to the event, is similar to the open division and will be judged on the opportunity for growth and job creation, Hornsby said.
"I'm really excited that the community gets to participate," Bott said. "It's a really great opportunity to see students and the community work together."
Applicants will go through two rounds of judging. The first will be a 30-minute presentation to three of the six judges explaining and promoting the idea, Blackmer said. After half of the entries are eliminated, another, refined pitch of the ideas will determine the winners.
Seniors Matt Weyand and Emily Eoff are two of the participants in the competition. Weyand, an open division contestant, has an idea for a Texas hold'em house in his home town of Bloomington. He said has been putting on poker tournaments for the last two years. For the technology division, Eoff is pitching a campus bike rail company that tracks the position of bicycles and puts advertisements on them.
Contestants have spent the last few days working on their projects to get the last-minute revisions done.
"I've spent the last 72 hours trying to put together a presentation," Weyand said.
Money will be awarded to the top three entries in each division, Blackmer said. First place will earn $10,000, second place will earn $5,000 and third place will receive $2,000.
The event is sponsored by the Central Indiana Corporate Partnership, which is donating the prize money for the technology division, the city of Muncie and the Innovation Connector, which is donating the prize money for the community division, the Ball State University entrepreneurship program, and the Digital Exchange Initiative funded by the Lilly Endowment.
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