UK Happenings

2017 UK Venture Challenge Scheduled for Feb. 18

Photo of previous Venture Challenge
UK students pitch their ideas to a panel of entrepreneurs from the Lexington community who evaluate their presentations as potential investors would.

LEXINGTON, Ky. (Nov. 30, 2016) University of Kentucky Venture Challenge, the annual, university-wide student entrepreneur competition, will be Saturday, Feb. 18, 2017, at William T. Young Library's auditorium.

Venture Challenge provides an opportunity for students from every college to pitch their ideas to a panel of entrepreneurs from the Lexington community who evaluate their presentations as potential investors would. Students gain valuable contacts and mentors in the local entrepreneurial community as they go through Venture Challenge.

Prior to pitching, students develop their ideas into a business concept and prepare a three- to five-page written proposal. Venture Challenge is open to all UK undergraduate and graduate students with an innovative idea for a start-up, existing business, or nonprofit venture.

Online registration opens Jan. 17. Interested students should fill out the Venture Challenge Intent to Compete.

“The UK Venture Challenge is a great opportunity for students to hone the skills needed to start or be involved in the earliest stages of a company,” said local entrepreneur Randall Stevens, CEO of ArchVision. “These are skills that will serve them well no matter where their careers take them.”

Stevens also serves as co-chair of iNET, or Innovation Network for Entrepreneurial Thinking, the UK organization that puts on Venture Challenge.

The three winning teams share $3,000 in scholarship prizes, and will represent UK at the state competition, Idea State U, sponsored by the Kentucky Cabinet for Economic Development.

Sponsors of Venture Challenge include the Bluegrass Business Development Partnership, an economic development partnership between UK, the Lexington-Fayette Urban County Government and Commerce Lexington; the Gatton College of Business and Economics; and the College of Communication and Information.

UK Venture Challenge is organized by iNET, the Innovation Network for Entrepreneurial Thinking, in the College of Communication and Information, with the Von Allmen Center for Entrepreneurship and the Lexington Office of the Kentucky Innovation Network in the Gatton College of Business and Economics.

Contact Deb Weis for more information, and to receive the 2017 Venture Challenge Intent to Compete.