Carbon Venture 2022

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This is a guide to all things Carbon Venture 2022

Carbon Venture 2022 Overview

Join the fight against climate change while competing for $20,000 in cash prizes by pitching your venture to industry experts, investors, and community members.

This is a ‘reverse pitch’ competition open to Boise State students. You don’t have to bring your own idea, as industry partners will identify challenges they face and pose these as problem statements. Participants will work on interdisciplinary teams to find solutions to these challenges, while building a venture.

There are three phases of this competition:

Sprint Week (April 12-18, 2022)

Participants will attend daily meetings from 5:00-6:00 p.m., composed of a mix of lessons, brainstorming sessions with industry leaders, practice pitches with mentors, and one-on-one meetings. Solutions will be refined into ventures through research, customer discovery, and idea validation.

Pitch Competition (April 19, 2022)

The Carbon Venture Challenge will culminate with a pitch competition. Judges include industry experts, entrepreneurs, and investors, providing connections to a network that will last well beyond this competition.

Final Pitch Competition (April 22, 2022)

Finalist teams will pitch for $20,000 in cash prizes.

Problems Statements

If you already have a venture or solution that addresses carbon reduction or sustainability, you are allowed to use it for this competition. Otherwise, you can use the following problem statements as an inspiration for a starting point:

High Level Problem: How can you help Boise State increase it’s sustainability score?

Boise State recently scored a 48.87 (out of 100) for it’s sustainability performance. They are looking to improve their score in the near-term; however, secondary education and institutions can be deathly slow moving - especially if it requires multi-departmental approval, a sizeable budget, or new resources.

We suggest your solution offers the following:

• Solutions that will not require multi-departmental changes or need significant time for approvals.

• Little to no budget. You could suggest re-allocating costs to fund your idea, but we suggest not trying to increase the existing budget.

• Boise State is especially interested in spreading awareness amongst students and getting them involved.

• A solution that would be easy to test and collect results (to see if it justifies investing more time or effort).

Specific Problem Areas

Boise State’s sustainability score is comprised of category and subcategory scores.

Categories:

Open

Examples of Sub Categories:

Each category’s score can be expanded to see the sub-category scoring.

Open

Learning About Each Sub Categories:

When you click on a sub category, you will find more information that Boise State self-reported. In addition to figures and data, Boise State provides a description of what they are currently doing (or not doing).

Suggestions for Exploring Solutions

Sometimes the easiest solutions are ones that have already been proven out in other markets (i.e. universities), but have not been applied locally. You can do this in a few easy steps:

1. Research what other schools are doing

We encourage you to research what other schools and universities are doing to score higher in sustainability

2. Each subcategory lists the main contact from each school:

These are industry experts that can give you more insight and help.

3. A quick Google search should provide you the person’s contact info so you can reach out and try to schedule a time to talk:

You can look for an email or reach out via LinkedIn.

4. Be professional and polite when reaching out to industry experts. An example email might look like this:

Mr. Miller,

I am a Boise State student competing in a sustainability competition for $20,000. I am specifically trying to help Boise State raise their STARS score for Waste Management and Diversion. I saw you helped the University of Connecticut receive a 4.0 score. I also read your detailed descriptions and had a few follow-up questions.

Would you be open to a quick phone call so I could get more insights to help with my Waste Management and Diversion solution for the competition?

Thanks,
Ryan

Other Competition Tips & Suggestions

1. We encourage participants to work on interdisciplinary teams.

2. Venture College will help match students to teams when the program begins. If you don’t have a team in mind, not to worry as we will help!

3. Get stared before the competition! You know the problems - so get to work learning more about it before Sprint Week.

Pitch Details

• All pitches will be 4 minutes or less

• Pitch decks will need to be sent to Cara Van Sant prior to the competition.

• Please follow the general pitch-deck outline

  • Please note the template is merely a suggested guide. You may:

    • Change the order of the slides

    • Brand the slides with different colors, titles, etc.

  • No videos are allowed in the slides

• Pitches will be followed up with a Q&A session with judges for 4 minutes or less

• If your team has multiple members, it is not required that they all present during the 4 minutes. It’s your choice.

• Each team will pitch three times during the pitch off. If you take 1st place in your track, you will pitch one more time (against the other track winners) in the Final Pitch Competition.

Scoring Rubric

This competition places a heavy emphasis on ideas that are realistic, easy to launch and could scale at Boise State. In addition, there is an emphasis on demonstrating progress and validation during the “sprint week.” The judges rubric will have the following six questions:

1. How well do they understand and articulate the sustainability problem they are trying to solve?

2. Is their solution realistic and/or unique enough that would make them more likely to succeed?

3. How much progress/traction have they demonstrated before the competition or during Sprint Week?

4. How likely is the team to launch their idea into the market within the next 3-6 months? Have they clearly defined next steps needed?

5. How likely would Boise State allow them to quickly launch and test their venture within the university? If it shows signs of success, how likely would Boise Sate allow their venture to scale and become bigger?

6. How was the overall quality of their pitch presentation and Q&A performance?

Pitch Resources

1. Keep your slides simple, with minimal words. You are doing the presenting, not your slides. See pitch deck examples.

2. See comparable examples of IEC Finalists Pitches:

   1. IEC 2019 - Door Step

   2. IEC 2020 - Karmic Outdoors

   3. IEC 2020 - CatheterX

   4. IEC 2021 - Cargo Made-EZ

   5. IEC 2021 - Honu Systems

   6. IEC 2021 - 3D Printcess

Main Competition Contacts

We are here to help you with any questions.