Miami, May 1, 2017 – Students at Miami Dade College’s (MDC) acclaimed Idea Center will present their final projects at 6 p.m., Tuesday, May 2 at the 3rd Startup Challenge, an exciting competition where students pitch their ideas for a new product or business.
Seventeen teams of talented students, college-wide and in various disciplines from engineering to marketing, will compete during two rounds of competition as they transform a simple idea into a functional prototype. Over the course of three months, students received support through lean startup workshops and mentoring that provided tools to better equip participants to continue to develop the idea into a prototype.
Judges for the final round of competition are Marc Fest, former vice president of communications at the John S. and James L. Knight Foundation and founder of Atlantic Point, LLC; Carolina Piña, executive director at WIN Lab; and Beatriz Sanchez, managing director at Goldman Sachs Private Wealth Management Latin America and Idea Center advisory board member.
First prize is $2,000 in seed money to develop the winning concept. Second place will receive $1,000 and third will receive a $500 cash prize. In additional to cash prizes this year, winners will be awarded over $1,500 worth of in-kind legal, marketing and product design services from prize sponsors such as Court Buddy, UX Gofer, and Marketing Connection for Small Business, to name a few.
The Idea Center @MDC
The Idea Center @MDC is the college’s hub of innovation, the place where students from all disciplines can gather, collaborate and take advantage of resources and training to develop their entrepreneurial ideas. Through cutting-edge entrepreneurship education, professional development and experiential learning, students and community members can acquire the tools needed to identify challenges and develop solutions. The Idea Center has several components including MarketHack, CREATE accelerator, CodePro, The Startup Challenge, and the Innovation Lab, to name a few. It is made possible through the support of Knight Foundation. For more information, visit www.theideacenter.co