Competition Structure and Calendar

The official structure and calendar of Nanchallenge&Polymerchallenge 2012 is as follows:

First Phase	Deadline to Register Online and to submit the Executive Summaries	Sunday, August 26^th ,2012
First Phase	Announcement of Selected Teams	Thursday, September 6^th ,2012
Second Phase	Mentoring – 1^stRound	11^th – 14^th September, 2012
	Mentoring – 2^ndRound	24^th – 27^th September, 2012
	Deadline to submit Business Plan and Pledge to Compete	Monday, October 15^th, 2012
Third Phase	Boot Camp	Monday, Tuesday and Wednesday October 27^th, 28^th and 29^th, 2012
	Jury evaluation/Dry Run (closed doors)	Tuesday, October 30^th, 2012
	Arena Meeting and Selection Event Announcement in Padova-Italy (open doors)	Wednesday, October 31^st, 2012
Fourth Phase	Deadline to submit the final version of the Business Plan	Monday, December 31^st, 2012
Fourth Phase	Conference Awards and Winner Announcement in Padua-Italy	March, 2013

First phase

Teams entering the Competition must select the category they compete for, nanotechnology or polymer-based materials, through the on-line registration form (see Registration Overview) and submit an Executive Summary of their business project using the model downloadable from the website (www.nanochallenge.com). The Concept/Scientific Jury will screen the Executive Summaries, evaluate the business potential, and select the most promising ones for the following phases for the nanotechnology and for the polymer-based materials category.

Second phase

The selected teams from the “first phase” are asked to attend two mentoring sessions given by the consultants of Macorig &Co. The appointments for the two mentoring sessions will be given once the Entry Team has accomplished the Registration procedure in a correct way. It is warmly suggested to start to study, and possibly start to complete, the Business Plan model before the mentoring sessions in order to have a draft of the document ready for discussion.

Third phase

Only if the selected team will attend the two mentoring sessions, sign and send the Pledge to Compete and improve the Business Plan preparation, it will then attend the Selection Event in October in Padua, by presenting and discussing its technology and Business Plan during the Boot Camp, the 1to1 meeting as well as before the Contest Jury that selects the finalist/s teams.

Fourth phase

Finalist Teams are requested to finalize and submit the final version of their Business Plan according to the feedbacks received by the Contest Jury and the Boot Camp trainers on the occasion of the Evaluation Event in Padua by December 31^st 2012. The Organizing Committee and the Contest Jury will then identify the winners of each 2 category of the Competition (Nanochallenge or Polymerchallenge) and invite them to receive the prizes on the occasion of a Conference in Padua in March 2013.