Dozens of students will compete in the second round of PioBiz — a business start-up competition with a final award of $10,000 — on Thursday, February 6th, in the Timothy O. Cooper Auditorium.
The competition, which is free and open to the public, begins at 4:00 p.m. The second round of competition is known as the “Proof of Concept” stage. In this round, each team must present its business idea in five minutes or less, and convince the judges that the idea is feasible. The judges will then be given five minutes to have their questions answered by the competitors.
Any full-time Marietta College student may compete in PioBiz alone or as a member of a two-, three-, four- or five-person team. Only one member of the team must be a Marietta College student. However, all Marietta student members of a team must have an ownership stake in the proposed business.
Each team may enter each round of the competition with up to three different ideas. Only the Marietta College student members of a team may make presentations and receive the award money. Non-Marietta College team members may only participate in the Q&A segments of the competition with judges.
In addition to the competition judges, the members of the audience will also have a chance to vote for their favorite projects.
The third and final round of the competition is when teams get to present a business idea. This will be held on April 16th.