The Baiada Institute Incubator Competition is designed to help student entrepreneurs and their teams develop their business ideas, receive feedback and mentoring, and compete for cash prizes. It also provides opportunities for networking, brainstorming and development of future entrepreneurial opportunities.

Teams develop their ideas with guidance from business leaders who serve as mentors and judges. Additional assistance is provided through workshops held at the Baiada Institute as well as from faculty and staff at the Close School of Entrepreneurship.

HOW TO PARTICIPATE

Teams must register a team leader, list team members and enter all submissions through the competition website at https://baiada.startuptree.co/discover/competitions.

A team can consist of one person, or as many people as needed by the team. The team must designate a team leader, who must be a degree-candidate (undergraduate or graduate) student at Drexel University or recent graduate (graduated no earlier than June 2021) of Drexel University.  

See the Rules page for additional information regarding team qualification.

COMPETITION FORMAT

The competition format is below. See the Schedule page for additional timeline details.

• Round 1: Submit your application with an optional video and executive summary. A set of impartial judges will review and score your application online, with the top five scoring applications going through to Round 2. Accepted participants will have the opportunity to receive pitch presentation education and receive feedback during a live practice session.
• Round 2: Five competitors will compete in a live competition during Future Fest. Judges will award the top three competitors with the prizes shown below.

Mentoring and pitch practice opportunities will be provided throughout the competition. See the schedule page for more details.

PRIZES

We are proud to offer the following prizes:

Cash prizes

• First place: $10,000
• Second place: $6,000
• Third place: $4,000

In-kind services

• A certain amount of free, in-kind legal, accounting, and other services will be provided to the winners. Details of those services will be announced.
• Resident space in the Baiada Institute will be available for the top three teams.

SCHEDULE

• Applications due by 11:59pm Friday, January 27th

• Finalist notifications on or about Monday, February 13th

• Finalist presentations Thursday, February 23rd (during Future Fest)