Competition Rules and Guidelines

Eligibility Requirements

Each team must consist of at least one full time student, post-doctoral trainee, or recent graduate from either UCSD or the other Torrey Pines Mesa Research Institutions (The Salk Institute, Burnham Institute, Scripps Research Institute, and the Scripps Institute of Oceanography).  Recent graduates must have received their UCSD degree after August 15^th 2009.

The Student/post-doc must be an active, contributing team member who is the founder or co-founder of the team, and, together with all other student/post doc team members, hold in the aggregate at least 20% of the ownership interest in the company which is the subject of such team’s submission in the competition.

No professor or outside business professional will be allowed to participate in the presentations themselves at our final event.

Competitors in the competitions may not have raised an aggregate amount of over $250,000 in cash funding from any source, including, but not limited to, funds awarded in other competitions, angel investments (including from friends and family), investments from venture capital or other institutional investors, grant awards, and in each case whether including funds received in exchange for equity or any form of debt, whether convertible or non-convertible.

The following UC San Diego Entrepreneur Challenge organizers are not permitted to compete; CEO, COO, CFO, and any member of the Judging Division.

The UC San Diego Entrepreneur Challenge reserves the right to require at any time that any competitor sign an affidavit that their team meets each of the requirements described above at any point and continuously throughout the applicable competition.   In addition, any awards are subject to forfeiture and/or repayment if determined that the awardees were not in compliance.

All finalist winners need to be incorporated and provide a valid tax ID# before cash funding prizes can be awarded.   All funds secured through any of the competitions may only be used for working capital purposes (e.g. to launch the business idea or expand an existing business.

Confidentiality Details

Only the judges assigned to read the submission for each of the three separate competitions, as well as the CEO, COO, and Director of Judging will have access to the submissions.

Judges will be asked to treat all plans with complete confidentiality. We will also ask a judge to remove himself or herself from judging if we believe, in our sole discretion, that he or she has a conflict of interest.

Entrants should feel free to mark plans as confidential and exclude any information that is considered to be truly proprietary.

Judges, mentors, staff, legal counsel and any individual attending any public sessions of the competitions will not be asked or required to agree to or sign non-disclosure, confidentiality or other similar agreements. 


All public sessions of the competition, including the final oral business plan presentations will be open to the public. Any information or data discussed in the public sessions should be considered information that is likely to enter the public domain. Competitors should not assume any right of confidentiality to any information presented or discussed in public sessions. Please be aware that members of the media, potential competitors, and members of the financial community may attend public sessions.

Judges, mentors, staff, and audience members will not be asked to agree to or sign non-disclosure statements.

By participating in the competition, competitors agree that the UC San Diego Entrepreneur Challenge Competition assumes no liability, and shall have no liability or obligation whatsoever for disclosures of information provided by a competitor as part of a submission or otherwise during the course of the competitions.

Failure to comply with these requirements may result in disqualification at any time in the sole discretion of the UC San Diego Entrepreneur Challenge.

The UC San Diego Entrepreneur Challenge Competition holds the final say in all disputes and may at any time require that a finalist or winner of any cash or service award that failed to comply with requirements set forth above throughout the applicable competition forfeit and/or repay any such award.  Guidelines and rules for any or all of the competitions are subject to change at any time within the scope of the UC San Diego Entrepreneur Challenge Competition mission.