Judging

Nanochallenge and Polymerchallenge 2011 is not an academic competition, and it does not reward the best written Business Plan itself.
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 objective is to create real high ventures in Italy. Ultimately, the winning Teams are the proposals in which the judges 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, likelyhood 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, in the territories of the technological Clusters of Veneto Nanotech and IMAST. As a consequence Teams must be really willing to open headquarters in the Veneto or Campania Regions.

Two different judging panels are set up to evaluate contestants:

Scientific Jury
Contest Jury

Scientific 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 Finalist Teams for the nanotechnology and for the polymer-based materials categories.

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 committee is formed after the selection of the Finalist Teams, in order to grant a scientific view according to the ideas that will be presented at the Final Contest.

The Contest Jury analyses the final versions of all Business Plans prior to the Final Contest on 10th and 11th November 2011 and is present at the Final Contest.
During the Final Contest the jury members listen to the oral presentations of the finalist teams and visit them at their poster corners during the coffee and lunch breaks. Finally they will examine all the finalist teams in a private Q&A session.

The Contest Jury chooses the Winners of the competition considering:

competences, skills and abilities of the teams members;
real intentions of the team to start the new operations in the territory of the Cluster (Veneto or Campania);
viability 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.