News Release

CHAPEL HILL -- Sixteen teams of entrepreneurial students, faculty and staff from the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill will compete Saturday (April 16) for $25,500 in prize money in the first Carolina Challenge entrepreneurial business plan competition.

These teams emerged as semifinalists from more than 50 that began competing in December. They propose ventures as diverse as an on-campus grocery delivery service, a nonprofit combating illiteracy and a patented nosebleed prevention device. (A full list of semifinalists is at www.unc.edu/cei.)

The public is invited to attend this student-led program of the Carolina Entrepreneurial Initiative (CEI), a campuswide effort designed to help UNC students, faculty and staff learn to create successful new ventures of all kinds.

The event begins with semifinal rounds at 8 a.m. in classrooms at the UNC Kenan-Flagler Business School’s McColl Building. Finals begin at 12:15 p.m. in the Maurice J. Koury Auditorium. The finals end with an audience vote to identify the Carolina Challenge’s "people’s choice" award, a $1,500 cash prize.

The Carolina Challenge teams include at least one UNC student, faculty or staff member. They compete in two categories: one for business ventures and one for "social ventures," those created to benefit society. Teams will present their plans to a panel of judges made up of successful entrepreneurs and business people, as well as community and university leaders.

Judges will award the following in the two categories: grand prize ($7,000), second place ($3,000) and honorable mention ($1,000, with two awards in each category). The top prize in the business category is the Stedman Award, named to honor the late John Stedman, banker and entrepreneur.

"This is the type of experience students long for – applying what they learn in the classroom to the real world," said Bart Welch, a UNC junior business major who is co-chairman of the competition’s planning team. "The CEI has allowed these teams to get the knowledge and skills they need to make their ideas become reality."

The Carolina Challenge is designed to identify and support outstanding entrepreneurial ventures, including those in the emerging area of social entrepreneurship, from all schools and departments throughout UNC. Activities span the academic year, beginning in the fall with recruitment and team-formation activities to attract the best ideas and demonstrate the value of participating in and winning the competition.

The competition emphasizes forming multidisciplinary teams that have the breadth and depth of skills and knowledge to implement the venture idea. Once teams officially entered the competition in December, they gained access to a wide range of resources to help them learn how to turn their ideas into viable business plans.

The Carolina Challenge is one of 10 programs offered by the CEI during the 2004-2005 academic year. The CEI seeks to help UNC students, faculty and staff learn to transform their ideas into sustainable enterprises that create value – social, artistic, environmental and business.

The $11 million program is funded in part by the Ewing Marion Kauffman Foundation, managed by the Frank Hawkins Kenan Institute of Private Enterprise and led by faculty and staff from an array of disciplines. Successful entrepreneurs, many of them UNC alumni, serve as advisers, lending their real-world expertise.

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Carolina Entrepreneurial Initiative contact: Cyndy Falgout, (919) 401-3548

News Services contact: Deb Saine, (919) 962-8415 or deborah_saine@unc.edu