Erica Grant competing this week in prestigious “Rice Business Plan Competition”
They represent universities from across the country and five countries. Some of the institutions are very prestigious – Massachusetts Institute of Technology, Stanford and Yale – while others are not as well known.
We’re talking about the 42 start-ups pitching later this week in the rescheduled and virtual “Rice Business Plan Competition” (RBPC), and one of the 42 is Erica Grant of Quantum Lock Technologies LLC. The newly named member of Cohort 4 of the “Innovation Crossroads” program operated by Oak Ridge National Laboratory (see our recent article here) will be vying in the prestigious event that starts Wednesday afternoon.
As noted on the webpage for the RBPC, it “is the world’s richest and largest graduate-level student start-up competition. It is hosted and organized by the Rice Alliance for Technology and Entrepreneurship, which is Rice University’s internationally-recognized initiative devoted to the support of entrepreneurship, and the Jesse H. Jones Graduate School of Business.”
Now in its 20th year, the RBPC has grown from nine teams competing for $10,000 in prize money in 2001 to 42 teams from around the world competing for more than $1.5 million in cash and prizes.
The Wednesday event is pre-recorded elevator pitches delivered in a one-hour session. The real competition begins Thursday morning with the semi-final round in a “closed to the public” event with those moving on to the finals announced at 12:30 p.m. CDT. The full finals, scheduled for 9:30 a.m. to 12:30 p.m. CDT on Friday, can be viewed by the public – register here.
The grand prize winner receives $350,000 while second place earns $100,000 and third place is $50,000.
Here’s a link to the 42 companies.
