Frequently Asked Questions

Can I submit an idea by myself (team of 1)?

No, a big part of innovation and entrepreneurship is the formation of an interdisciplinary team of people with complementary expertise (e.g., engineering and medicine, engineering and business) to take the idea from conception to fruition. You can’t find many successful companies based on the effort of a single person. (Apple: Jobs and Wozniak, Microsoft: Gates and Allen, HP: Hewlett and Packard). A team of 2 is the preferred size but team size can be 3 maximum.

How many ECE students can be on a team?

We require at least one ECE student to be on the team. The team can be all ECE students, however, we strongly encourage the formation of interdisciplinary teams across engineering and other colleges and schools.

Can a team submit more than one idea?

No, each team is limited to a single submission. Submission of multiple ideas will disqualify the team.

Can one person be on multiple teams?

No, a person can only be on one team.

Do we need to prototype our idea for the second phase?

Prototype is not necessary for winning the second phase. The selected teams are welcome to do that if they think it will improve their chances, however, if an idea is super interesting with great potential and convincing commercial/startup argument that could be a winner without any demo or prototype.

What happens to the teams that were not selected in the final competition?

In addition to the $250, at the discretion of the selection committee and the ECE head some of the teams in the second phase that were not selected as the top three might receive additional support to move their ideas forward, if their ideas are identified to have potential for a commercial product or service.