PITCH-IT GBC is accepting applications from any George Brown College student or recent graduate, who attended an academic program between January 2020 and March 2021, with an active georgebrown.ca email account, who are looking for seed funding to support the creation of for-profit businesses and social innovation organizations. Expression of interest must be submitted by 4:00 p.m. Friday, March 5, 2021.
Please complete the following expression of interest to participate and a link to the and instructions will be emailed to you.
About the PITCH IT! GBC Competition
The PITCH IT! GBC Competition is designed to provide seed funding to support aspiring entrepreneurs in developing and pitching their business/social innovation ideas. Participants have an opportunity to win a portion of the $10,000 prize fund. Two streams of the PITCH IT! GBC competition will occur simultaneously:
Stream 1: For-profit business and
Stream 2: Social innovation enterprises
Social Innovation enterprises can include a not-for-profit or for-profit entity. In addition, for-profit businesses can apply for both streams if their product offering covers social innovation. Applications can be submitted by solo-entrepreneurs or multi-founder teams. Prizes will be awarded one per business/social innovation pitched and not per person within a team.
The prize pot will be split in the following way:
Stream 1 – For-profit Business
Winner – $2,500
Second – $1,500
Third – $1,000
Stream 2 – Social Innovation
Winner – $2,500
Second – $1,500
Third – $1,000
How to Enter and Steps for the Competition:
- Interested participants must register their interest via the dedicated competition page on the startGBC website startGBC.com/PITCHITGBC
- Business model canvas and pitch skills workshops will be run during January and February that applicants are encouraged to attend.
- Applications with completed Business Model Canvas and 3-minute video pitch (Visual presentations are not required, pitches can be maximum -/+ 30 seconds either side of 3-minutes) to be completed and submitted by 4:00 p.m., Friday, March 5, 2021 (instructions on how to complete this will be emailed to all applicants who register an interest vis startGBC website).
- Applicants may enter one or both streams if they meet stream 2 eligibility, but must notify startGBC when submitting their business model canvas that they wish to be considered for both streams.
- Applications will be reviewed by a panel of startGBC independent advisors.
- A selection of applicants will be invited to compete in the final round by 5:00 p.m. Friday, March 12, 2021.
- Finalists will pitch their ideas at a live event to a panel of judges on Saturday, March 27, 2021.
- Winners will be selected on Saturday, March 27, 2021, and winners will be announced by 8:00 p.m. Saturday, March 27, 2021
- Funds will be deposited into their George Brown College Stu-View student account.
Eligibility:
- Entries can be single applicants or multiple founder partnerships.
- The main applicant must be a current student at George Brown College or recent alumni (graduated between January and December 2020).
- Open to domestic and international students, but the intention must be to establish a business/social enterprise in Ontario, Canada.
- Applicants must use an active George Brown College email account to submit an application and to receive competition communications and to be able to receive funds if successful.
- All applicants must be available to present a live online 5-minute pitch live at the PITCH IT! GBC final competition on Saturday, March 27, 2021, in order to be eligible to receive funding.
- Applicant/Team can be at the concept stage and does not need to be operating or registered at the time of entry.
- To enter Social Innovation Stream 2, your proposed offering must meet the following social innovation definition: – Social innovations are new social practices that aim to meet social needs in a better way than the existing solutions. These can include improving working conditions, education, community development or health, with the ultimate goal of strengthening civil society. Social innovation includes the social processes of innovation, such as open-source methods and techniques and also innovations with a social purpose – like activism, virtual volunteering, microcredit, or distance learning.
General Information
- Finalists are not guaranteed funding.
- Applicants will learn the identity of the final competition selection panel on Saturday, March 27, 2021.
- Applicants will retain ownership of all intellectual property contained in their submissions.
- Applicants are encouraged to attend a Business Model Canvas workshop provided by startGBC before making an entry.
- Applicants are encouraged to use the Open-3-Close Pitch method as found on the startGBC website (https://www.startgbc.com/resources/tools/) and attend a workshop to gain experience.
- Scoring criteria for each element of the competition can be found in the rubrics in appendix A, B & C.
Competition Rules and Regulations
By submitting an application to the PITCH IT! GBC Competition, applicants consent and agree to abide by the following rules and regulations:
- George Brown College is not responsible for any lost, late, illegible, incomplete, falsified, destroyed, or failed entries, or for any electronic miscommunications or failures of any kind, which may limit a person’s ability to participate in the competition.
- Each participant may only submit one business idea.
- Deliberate or negligent misappropriation of the intellectual property of another person is an ethical breach that will be grounds for disqualification from the competition.
- In the event that startGBC is prevented from continuing with the contest by an event beyond its control, startGBC or George Brown College has the right to modify, suspend, extend, or terminate the competition.
- startGBC and George Brown College reserves the right to use competition submissions, as well as photographs or video was taken of competition applicants, as a group or individually, over the course of the competition, for educational and promotional purposes in perpetuity.
- In the event of a dispute regarding who submitted an entry, the entry will be deemed to have been submitted by the authorized account holder of the email address used to submit the entry at the time of entry. “Authorized account holder” is defined as the natural person who is assigned to an email address by an Internet service provider, online service provider or other organization responsible for assigning email addresses for the domain associated with the submitted email address.
- By participating in the PITCH IT! GBC Competition, entrants agree to be bound by these official rules and the decisions of startGBC and the judges, which are final and binding in all respects. Failure to comply with the Official Rules will result in disqualification.
- All rules and regulations proposed within are subject to change, at the sole discretion of startGBC, at any time, without previous warning or notification to contest applicants.
- All prize fund winners will be required to remain engaged with startGBC until April 2022 and provide quarterly updates to the startGBC Manager on the progress of the business creation.
- All applicants will be required to complete the annual startGBC entrepreneurship survey in April 2021 and April 2022.
- All applicants will be required to complete a competition exit survey which will require applicants to reflect on the process and personal development in line with the George Brown College Human Skills Framework.
- The final competition will be recorded by startGBC/George Brown College and will be made available for viewing by startGBC/George Brown College. All applicants will be required to sign a video/media release form.
- Prize winners must provide startGBC with a budget forecast on how the prize funds will be spent by 5:00 p.m., Monday, March 29, 2021.
- If details provided by applicants are no longer active on March 31, 2021, funds will become void.
- George Brown College and startGBC respect your right to privacy. Personal information collected from applicants will only be used by George Brown College/startGBC to administer the competition and, only if consent is given at the time of entry, to provide applicants with information regarding upcoming workshops, events and competitions. For more information regarding the manner of collection, use and disclosure of personal information by George Brown College, please refer to the George Brown College Privacy Policy available at https://www.georgebrown.ca/about/policies/privacy-policy.
Business Model Canvas Workshops
startGBC will be running 3 online Business Model Canvas workshops and you are encouraged to register for one of these to learn more about using the Business Model Canvas before submitting your entry. Registration is required. Please Click Here to Register
Dates:
2:00 p.m. Thursday, January 28, 2021
10:00 a.m. Tuesday, February 16, 2021
2:00 p.m. Monday, March 1, 2021
Pitch Workshops
startGBC will be running 3 online Pitch Skills workshops and you are encouraged to register for one of these before submitting your entry. Registration is required. Please Click Here to Register
Dates:
10:00 a.m. Thursday, January 28, 2021
2:00 p.m. Tuesday, February 16, 2021
10:00 a.m. Monday, March 1, 2021
Evaluation Rubrics
Appendix A – Business Model Canvas Evaluation Rubric
Appendix B – 3-minute Flipgrid Entry Pitch Evaluation Rubric
Appendix C – 5-minute Final Pitch Evaluation Rubric