Nanochallenge and Polymerchallenge 2012 is not an academic competition, and it does not reward the best written Business Plan itself, but take into account other key factors and information.
The objective is to create real high ventures in Italy. Ultimately, the winning Teams are the proposals in which the judges and the Organizers would most likely invest their money in.
Judges are therefore evaluating the business plans on their likelihood of actually becoming a true business opportunity. This consideration includes factors as: team’s members competences and skills, degree of creativity and innovation of the Business Idea, technology involved, Team’s credibility to implement the plan, likelihood of the economic structure (capital needed, revenue and profit potential, as well as the time line to profitability and the exit strategy).
Judges must also take into considerations that the new businesses must start operations in Italy, possibly in the territories of the technological Clusters of Veneto Nanotech and IMAST. As a consequence, Teams must be really willing to open headquarters in Italy, preferably in the Veneto or Campania Regions.
The BPC has two main Juries working in close cooperation with the Organizing Committee to evaluate contestants:
- Scientific/Concept Jury
- Contest Jury
Scientific/Concept Jury
The Jury represents the Italian business and scientific/academic world. It will select the most promising business ideas among all the Executive Summaries submitted.
In order to classify the most promising teams, each judge is given a guiding scorecard to facilitate the standardisation of evaluations and make them comparable.
The Concept Jury selects the Teams for the nanotechnology and for the polymer-based materials categories to be admitted to the Selection Event in October.
In this phase the focus is on the scientific value of the technology described, on the level of innovation, on the profile and qualifications of the team members, on the intellectual property strategy and on the market potential.
Contest Jury
The Jury represents the international business and scientific environment. It is the judging panel present at the Final Contest presentations for nanotechnology and polymer-based materials projects. The members of this jury are divided into two subgroups:
- Business/management committee: professionals chosen among different international VC firms, entrepreneurs, managers, consultants, etc.
- Scientific/technology committee: professors chosen among important worldwide universities, experts in the major nanotechnology and polymeric and composite materials related issues.
- The members of the Contest Jury function as a venture capital investing committee, deciding which business venture they would most likely fund both for the nanotechnology and the polymer-based materials category.
The committee is formed after the selection of the Entry Teams for the Selection Event, in order to grant a scientific view according to the ideas that will be presented at the Final Contest.
The Contest Jury analyses the implemented version of all Business Plans prior to the Selection Event on 30th and 31st Octover 2012 and is present at the Selection Event in Padua.
During the Selection Event, the Contest Jury members will examine all the teams in a private Q&A session (on Tuesday 30th of October) and listen to the oral presentations even on the occasion of the Arena Meeting (Wednesday 31st October) and visit them at their poster corners during the coffee and lunch breaks in the two-day event.
The Contest Jury chooses the Finalists of the competition considering:
- competences, skills and abilities of the teams members;
- real intentions of the team to start the new operations in Italy, preferably in the territory of the Cluster (Veneto or Campania);
- avaibility of the venture;
- level of innovation of the technology;
- existence of a real need in the market for the new technology or product;
- time to market;
- financial requirements of the business;
- attractiveness of the business for investors;
- intellectual property strategy.
