About Us

The Entrepreneurship Competition is registered as a student organization with UCSD's Student involvement Center (SOLO).   

Mission

The mission of the UC San Diego Entrepreneur Challenge is to foster community involvement and technological innovation by bringing multi-disciplinary teams of engineers, scientists, and business-minded students together with local area entrepreneurs and professionals in order that they might shape the world of tomorrow by securing the health of San Diego’s economy today.

The Challenge creates a platform previously absent from UC San Diego where scientists, engineers, and business students may interact.  We connect these young entrepreneurs with intellectual property law firms, angel investors, venture capitalists, and a broad spectrum of other successful business professionals in the community.

Once a team establishes itself, the organization then nurtures their growth using a three pronged approach: we provide 1) educational workshops on entrepreneurship, 2) expert guidance and mentoring through sponsor relations and established programs such as CONNECT and 3) prize incentives in our challenge that showcase the contestants’ innovative ventures to the San Diego community.

The UCSD $50K Entrepreneurship Competition is a student-run organization.  We, as students, recognize the value that is formulated when cultivating young entrepreneurial minds.  Realizing the potential of the ideas, the organization has setup a platform where scientists, engineers, and business persons may interact.  Before our organization was born, there were limited venues for interaction to occur between the diverse bodies of entrepreneurs.  However, since the implementation of the competition not only have we succeeded in connecting these entrepreneurs, but we were also able to link these cross-disciplinary teams with intellectual property law firms, angel investors, venture capitalists, and a broad spectrum of successful business persons in the community.  Essentially we are bringing together the smartest scientific minds and the boldest business leaders in the community.  Once a team establishes itself, the organization cradles to their needs using a three prong approach:  we provide 1) educational workshops on entrepreneurship, 2) social events cultivating new venture processes, and 3) incentives for competition that showcases the contestants’ innovative ventures to the San Diego community.

Our competition consists of four major categories of participants:  Entrepreneurs, Mentors, Investors, and Organizers.

We host three competitions throughout the year.  They are the Business Concept, Executive Summary, and Business Plan Presentation competitions.