What is the Carolinas 2019 Innovation Contest?

Any student chapter (in NC region) can submit one entry to the regional competition

• One entry per chapter
• Submission may be by an individual or university team.

The student chapter submission must fall under one of the Global Competition Topics:

• 2019 Topics for submission are: (see here for more detail)
  • Internet of Things (IoT)
  • Sustainable Engineering
  • Next Generation Transportation
  • Improvements in Clean Water
  • New Construction Materials & Methodology
• Students may elect to also enter their submission into a Special Entrepreneurial Award category.

The submission consists of the following:

A Poster

• Poster follows the information needed for the Global Competition submission “A good submission”
• The poster maximum size is 48" wide by 36" tall

A video presentation of the submission

• Similar to Ted talks (shark tank) type presentations.
• Presentation will qualify for chapter requirement to give presentation to be in good standing. (Mead paper continues to be an option)
• Length must be 5 min or less

An online Executive Summary

• Basic applicant information and a few paragraphs summarizing your innovation
• Applicants can upload up to 5 pages of material to describe their innovation in more detail. Use Creating a Good Submission for guidance.

SUBMIT HERE for Carolinas 2019 Regional Competition

Carolinas Regional Judging:

Student submissions will consist of a Poster to display at the regional event and an online application. The online application deadline is midnight March 27, 2019.

• The online application is an executive summary of the innovation with the ability to upload a link to a short video and up to a five-page document.
• Students will bring their posters to the event and setup first day.
• For assistance with submissions, see section below.

The judges will walk by all posters and evaluate them for how well they convey its innovative attributes.

The judges will meet students at their Poster table where the student(s) will pitch their innovations to the judges (no more than 5 minutes) and answer up to 5 minutes of questions. Exact time and location to be determined prior to event.

The pre-conference submission, the Poster and the Poster Pitch will each be scored and then calculated to establish a final score. The weighting system for a final score is as follows:

• 60% to preconference submission of uploaded doc, exec sum form and video. The submitting team has months to prepare and have the luxury of coaching AND submission feedback. The bulk of score is here.
• 20% for poster as it is a messaging tool to convey the important attributes to all attendees, faculty, possible sponsors and others who will not see any of the online submission information. The poster is the student team’s public marketing vehicle.
• 20% for private pitch to judges so the judges can see how well students know their information, see how prepared they are, see how they respond to probing questions, etc.

Scoring criteria for the student Innovation Contest follows the ASCE Global Innovation Contest scoring criteria weighting with 40% of score for how innovative the submission, 30% for how important to society/customer, and finally 30% to how technically feasible is the submission (for detail see here).

The finalists will be the student teams with the five highest final scores. Those finalists will all have their submission video played at the final day awards banquet. One hour prior to the banquet each of the final five teams will be given a few questions that the judges may ask, and after their video is shown will be asked to respond to one of those questions out of a hat (all scoring is completed, and there will be no pressure for the finalist teams. This just gives the audience a chance to hear from them and to receive recognition for making the finals.

After showing of the finalists’ videos at the banquet, three teams with the top final score will be announced and invited up to be recognized and claim their award.

These three teams with the highest final scores (providing those scores are above a minimum reserve threshold of 7.0 points) will be invited to the Global Innovation Contest June 26-27, 2019 where the six finalists from the two regions will present to national judges who will crown a student Innovation Contest champion.

Carolinas Regional Assistance:

• Our Entrepreneur on Demand Roger London (LinkedIn page), hosted instructive webinars in December and January for all students considering participation in the Student Innovation Contest. The webinars describe the timelines and process, explain in more detail the judging criteria and what makes a good submission, and provide answers to any anonymous questions from webinar participants.
• Private team coaching/mentoring will be available with Mr. London on a first come first serve basis. Student applicants will be able to speak privately about their innovation and get feedback on how and what to describe it. Mr. London will be available for one private call and multiple email exchanges.
• If student applicants submit by the Early submission deadline of March 14, 2019, Mr. London will review the submission from a judge’s perspective and provide written feedback and comments indicating which areas might be confusing, missing, need to be described further, etc. Student can then update their submission before the final submission deadline of midnight March 27, 2019.

Submission Tips

Application

• The Application form asks basic identifying information and a few paragraphs to summarizes each of the sections of your uploaded document
• You can upload up to 5 pages (single space, 11 pt or larger font) to your application. Review the Creating a Good Submission page for more detail of what makes a good submission.
• Some of the online summary application sections have 250 words or less fields. Its much easier to draft your submission in a WORD or similar application which is much easier to edit, organize and word count. When you finish, just cut and paste it into the fields on the application. Don’t worry about formatting or making it pretty, we are only concerned with the content.

Poster

• Eye catching but not all show and no go. More detail to come

Video

• This is chance to speak directly to the judges. Cue cards or notes are fine, just don’t read word for word from a script.
• If you like, you can build a PowerPoint slide and display it next to you as you make your 5-minute presentation and refer to it for visuals or for effect. You may choose to make your video presentation in front of or next to the poster and refer to it similarly. Neither of these visual props are necessary but may help you feel more comfortable.
• How much time do you spend on different things? We encourage you to build an outline and use your executive summary as the source.
  • Spend up to a minute defining the problem.
  • Allocate up to a minute talking about the market size and trends and how the competition (how is problem being addressed now and by who)
  • If you have clearly described the problem, describing how your innovation will be important is the key part of the video. With the rest of your time, explain at a high level how it will be used, what the customers/users/society will be able to do now that they couldn’t do before and why that is so important.
• Try to have a conversation with the camera. It sometimes helps to have someone stand behind the camera and actually talk to them.