Eastern Michigan University’s College of Business and SPARK East Business Incubator will host the 2014 Elevator Pitch Competition on April 4.
The event will be held at SPARK East in downtown Ypsilanti.
Each contestant is required to create a two-minute PowerPoint presentation or an optic submission of either their own idea or an existing business venture. The competition is open to the EMU community.
Cash prizes will be rewarded to the first, second and third place competitors.
Maya Brown, a finance major at EMU, said she’s proud to see the COB is offering students even more opportunities to gain knowledge about entrepreneurship.
“SPARK is cool for doing this,” Brown said. “It’s a smart move on their end because they have the chance to work with innovative people and help them discover what their own ‘spark’ is.”
SPARK East Business Incubator is located in Ypsilanti, but the SPARK Central Business Incubator is based in Ann Arbor. The company provides its tenants with adequate business advice and numerous business development systems.
Michael Tidwell, dean of the COB, has also worked closely with the competition. He says it is less confrontational and more informative.
“There’s not any back and forth like ‘Shark Tank,’” Tidwell said. “There will be a panel of judges who are looking for strong ideas that have the ability to drive the market place.”
“Anyone with a cool, new idea or concept can be really great for this,” Brown said. “My dad was a communications major at Eastern. He started and maintained his own holistic health center and training institute for over two decades and it’s because he took advantage of events like the Elevator Pitch Competition.”
Those interested must be registered by March 28. Visit emich.edu/cob/departments_centers/2014elevator for more information and for registration.
