PKF Texas is again sponsoring the Rice Business Plan Competition, April 15th-17th. Karen Love, Director of Practice Growth is on the host committee and I will be the official CPA, tabulating the competition results. As in years past, I will be live blogging from the competition, giving you insight into the process and the teams.
I received the below email from the Rice Alliance that I’m excited to share it with you. This year, for the first time, the RBPC is offering over $1,000,000 in prizes!
“We’re pleased to let you know that on Tuesday we will officially announce that prizes at the 2010 Rice Business Plan Competition will exceed $ 1 million for the first time ever! Back in 2001, the competition was founded with 9 teams competing for $10,000. By last year prizes had grown to over $800,000. In two weeks, 42 teams will travel to Houston to vie for over $ 1 million. This would not have been possible without the support that you and other judges and supporters have provided over the last nine years to make this possible. Thanks for helping to make this possible!
We received a record number of entries this year. We had over 420 applications for the 42 spots to compete. This year’s competitors include Harvard, Stanford, MIT, Carnegie Mellon, Berkeley, Chicago, Northwestern, UCLA, Michigan, Wharton, Purdue, Johns Hopkins, Dartmouth, Texas (at Austin), Oklahoma, Arkansas, Baylor, and Rice. In addition, we accepted international teams from India, Thailand, China, UK, and Canada.
We will announce this year’s winners of the $1 million at the Awards Banquet at the InterContinental Hotel on Saturday night, April 17. The Reception and Company Showcase starts at 6:00 pm and the dinner and awards start at 7:00 pm.”