The MIT $100K Entrepreneurship Competition Elevator Pitch Contest took place October 25-27th and was a huge success. It was definitely one of the defining moments of my time here at MIT. Here is the finale show in full:
For some quick background - the MIT $100K is MIT's business plan competition - where students with great business ideas and cutting-edge technology come to display their ideas, and win some seed funding in the process. The competition is made up of the Elevator Pitch Contest in the fall, the Executive Summary Contest in the winter, and the big one - the Business Plan Contest - in the spring.
The event is 100% student led - from raising the hundreds of thousands of dollars that are given out each year, to the logistics of coordinating the events/judges/competitors/etc.
I had the honor of leading the Elevator Pitch Contest (EPC), which meant recruiting this year's volunteers (we had a record 80 students), organizing them, and then overseeing the two-month planning effort. I had the opportunity to work with so many talented and creative MIT students - it was really a ton of fun.
The EPC is (in my opinion) the most fun contest of the year. It is all about getting your idea across in just 60 seconds, in front of a huge audience. Finalists were chosen over two nights of prelims, and on October 27th we had the finale show. Members of our $100K community were out in force, from past winners like Jonathan Seelig of Akamai, to current sponsors from law firms and VC funds.
The contest went off without a hitch, a testament to the great work of the team. Some pictures are below from the final event, where we were honored with the presence of Cynthia Barthart, the interim Dean of Engineering at MIT, and Bill Aulet, the Managing Director of the MIT Entrepreneurship Center.
