2020-2021 Greenlight Maine Collegiate Business Pitch Competition
Greenlight Maine is delighted to announce that it will once again host its Collegiate Business Pitch Competition for the 2020-2021 season.
Due to considerations in addressing COVID-19, this year’s program will be run remotely and on the Zoom platform. As such, the initial vetting presentations that students will participate in will be held on Saturday, November 14, 2020 starting at 1:00 PM.
Each participating student or team will be given a specific time slot on November 14, 2020 within which they will make their presentation.
Participating students must:
- Notify Isaac Salisbury Isaac.salisbury@thomas.edu & Con Fullam cfullam@maine.rr.com (and other relevant parties) of their intent to participate in the pitch competition by Friday, October 30, 2020 at 4:00 PM.
Please send an email that names the participants, the company name/brand, and which college/university you are representing
- Although presentations will be delivered ‘live’ and remotely on the Zoom platform, any use of electronic presentations will be strictly limited to PowerPoint (.ppt).
Teams that wish to use a PowerPoint (.ppt) presentation must send their final presentation ahead of time via email to Isaac Salisbury at haibicoor@thomas.edu by Wednesday, November 11, 2020 at 4:00 PM:
- All elements of the presentation will be completely contained within the PowerPoint (i.e. website screenshots, etc.)
- Embedded video or animation is not allowed
- A PowerPoint may be up to, but not to exceed, 4 slides. Each slide can be a single image or have no more than 5 single line Bullet points.
- Student entrepreneurs will be fully responsible for setting up their own PowerPoint presentation when their presentation time arrives. Neither Greenlight Maine staff nor their designees will be responsible for ensuring that an entrepreneur’s PowerPoint presentation is set up properly or that it successfully interacts with the Zoom platform.
For technical information and instruction, contact Isaac Salisbury at 207-859-1159 or haibicor@thomas.edu.
Initial Pitch-Off
The initial pitch-off will take place remotely on the Zoom platform on November 14, 2020 from 1 PM to 7 PM, or until completed.
Upon submittal of the entrepreneur’s intent to present and their confirmation on November 6, 2020, each entrepreneur and team will be given a specific time slot for their presentation
All prior participants that did not advance to the finale in past programs are eligible to pitch again.
All participants will be identified by number only-no names or college affiliations.
The maximum number of businesses from each school will be controlled by the overall number of applications received.
Each contestant/s will have 3 minutes to pitch followed by a 5-minute Q&A.
For this elimination round as many as 3 individuals from each company will be allowed to pitch. However, in the televised competition only 2 will be allowed.
The judges will score on a numerical system from 1 to 10 in each of the 5 following criteria;; Feasibility 20%- Innovation 20%-Scalability 20%-Overall quality of business idea 20%-Ability to grow business in Maine -20%.
All judges will have no affiliation with any Maine college.
Televised Pitch Competition
This televised competition will be among the best chosen from the initial pitch off held November 14, 2020.
As it is envisioned to be on the Zoom platform, this round will conform to all of the same rules set forth for the initial pitch-off.
It will take place on the Zoom platform during the first and/or second week in January of 2021.
All pitches will again be 3 minutes with a 3 to 4 minute Q&A. This is for the televised show only. Once the televised segment has been filmed, all presenters will get 10 minutes off camera to take a deeper dive into their business with the judges.
Presentation times will be allotted and, at this point, schools and presenters will be identified.
From this round, 3 finalists will be chosen.
The Grand Finale
The grand finale of the collegiate series will be recorded in April and air in May or June of 2021. The three finalists will vie for the chance to win first ($10,000), second ($5,000) and third place prizes ($2,500) in cash and the possibility of other services and benefits.
The pitching format will remain the same as the elimination round.
We look forward to everyone’s participation and good luck!
This event will be televised statewide on Maine Public Television, live streamed on Facebook, available on demand and on YouTube.
Over the course of the first 5 seasons of Greenlight Maine over $25 million dollars have been invested in companies that have appeared on the series.
All past episodes of all 5 seasons are available on YouTube at Greenlight Maine.
For further information or questions regarding these instructions, please feel free to contact Isaac Salisbury at 207-859-1159 or isaac.salisbury@thomas.edu.
