University of South Carolina’s annual entrepreneurial competition put on by the Faber Entrepreneurship Center, The Proving Ground, is expanding opportunities and horizons for undergraduates, graduate students and alumni from a cross-section of disciplines looking to compete to make their ideas come to fruition. The competition will not be until Nov. 17, but the deadline for submission is Friday, Oct. 23.
The competition has grown larger every year since it started in 2010. Last year it was held in a 250-seat auditorium in the Darla Moore School of Business, and this year it will be held at the W.W. Hootie Johnson Performance Hall in the business school, which seats 500 people.
In 2010, the first Proving Ground competition offered a total of $3,000 in prizes to the winners in three categories. This year’s event offers nearly $90,000 in prizes and start-up support to both winners and runner-ups in four categories: social impact, discovery, innovation and fan favorite.
Dean Kress, Faber Center Associate Director, is the organizer of The Proving Ground, and he believes this competition is vital to those looking to put their ideas and ventures into the public eye.
“From the standpoint of the Faber Entrepreneurship Center, it is the type of activity that we believe will promote an entrepreneurial spirit at the University,” Kress said in an email. “We have fantastic students and alums, and this gives them a chance to show their creativity and their business acumen.”
The Entrepreneurship Club at USC, or EclubSC, helps the Faber Center promote the event. Tony Klor, club president and fourth-year entrepreneurial management and marketing student, listed several things the club does to help The Proving Ground get off the ground.
“Namely, we help run info sessions about the competition as well as the marketing which consists of community and student promotion via the traction channels of social media i.e. Twitter, and Facebook, email marketing via Mailchimp, and print media with table tents,” Klor said in an email. “It’s stellar for students to participate because it forces you to take action on a business idea that you think could be the next big thing.”
All those who submit their ideas must make it past a three-round elimination process to win the prize money. The third and final round will be formatted like the popular TV show “Shark Tank,” where the finalists will pitch their concept to a panel of judges before a live audience.
Corporate sponsors Maxient, the No. 1 software used by university conduct offices, and Avenir, a consulting and interim management firm specializing in entrepreneurship, support the innovation and discovery categories respectively. The winners of those two categories will both receive $20,000 and the runner-up will receive $2,500.
Fluor, one of the planet’s biggest engineering firms, sponsors the social impact category in which the winner will receive $17,500 with the runner-up will receive $2,500. The winner of the fan favorite category, sponsored by SCRA Technology Ventures, will receive $3,000 with the runner-up receiving $1,000.
The winners of each category will also be given an affiliate membership in the USC/Columbia Technology Incubator, valued at $5,000 each.