Shelbie Harris
Staff Writer
Last week, Idaho State University in partnership with the Idaho National Laboratory, Grow Idaho Falls, Bannock Development and the Eastern Idaho Economic Development Council, proudly hosted the semifinals and finals for the BIG (Business, Innovation, and Growth) 2014 Educational Competition.
The BIG Competition is in its second year of development with this year being the first in which collegiate members were invited to participate.
The competition was designed to encourage the creation of new businesses within our region as well as to provide a link and raise awareness between service providers and entrepreneurial needs.
“There are many businesses born in dorm rooms and we want to increase college students’ participation this year,” said Stephanie Cook of the Idaho National Laboratory, one of many event organizers.
An additional benefit to a competition of this nature is that southeastern Idaho entrepreneurs, inventors and students alike gain knowledge and insight to early stage financing and business startup programs.
“[The BIG Competition] gives people the opportunity to move onto the next level,” said Linda K. Martin, the event coordinator and chief executive officer of Grow Idaho Falls.
Contestants were incentivized to participate with over $5,000 in cash awarded to winners of the event.
Next, the participants were broken into collegiate and community categories or tracks.
To participate in the collegiate track, at least one member of the team had to be a full time student in eastern Idaho.
In order to engage in the community track, one member of the team had to reside or work in eastern Idaho.
The contestants then had to develop a bold, innovative or novel idea for a business enterprise.
Once the BIG idea was cultivated, competition members had to perfect a sales pitch, create their executive summary, outline their idea and create a YouTube video explaining their product or business.
During the semifinals, each team was responsible for a 10 minute presentation followed by a question and answer segment.
The same procedure took place during the finals, however each team was allotted 12 minutes this time around.
The criteria on which the contestants were judged was broken down into two categories, with several sub-categories, which included the formal presentation and viability of the company.
The BIG Competition’s primary mission was to not only provide opportunities for the winners of the competition but for all participants.
Hye Joon Lee, a sophomore majoring in finance and a team member of Tsunami, was one of the members of the collegiate track who took second place at the competition with the idea of waterproof, wireless ear-buds that contained a built in MP3 storage device to allow users easy-listening to their favorite music.
“As a college student in business this is a really awesome opportunity for us to actually get an idea of what entrepreneurship is really like,” said Lee.
