Silicon Valley Comes to Oxford

at the Oxford Said Business School

A series of venture creation initiatives lead by the Saïd Business School champion entrepreneurial cultures within the University of Oxford and its regional and national environment:

The Oxford University 21st Century Challenge Competition

The Oxford University 21st Century Challenge is an international entrepreneurship competition for bold and innovative business ideas that can help to solve some of the key challenges of the 21st Century.

The goal of the competition is to promote the creation of sustainable new business ventures that combine financial returns with social and environmental benefits. These can include new products and services, operational processes and business models.

The competition encourages ground breaking innovation and problem solving – challenging entrepreneurs from across the world to make a real difference through developing new markets and making a sustainable profit.

To achieve this, the competition is divided into three challenge tracks: Tomorrow’s Planet, Tomorrow’s People and Tomorrow’s Wealth. To enter, participants’ business ideas must address a key 21st Century challenge in one of these tracks. Entrants will be required to write a 5-page outline summarizing their business idea.

Unlike most business plan competitions, the 21st Century Challenge is an ‘open source’ competition; we are looking for the best business ideas from across the world.

Venture Fund

The idea of establishing the Fund came from a leading British retail entrepreneur during a private equity event at the Saïd Business School in 2006, when he offered £500,000 to finance the best entrepreneurial ideas from the School’s students. A senior private equity player and fellow speaker at the event generously matched the retail entrepreneur’s gift to create the £1m fund.

The Saïd Business School Venture fund was established for educational purposes; it informs the School’s research and provides due-diligence, monitoring and early stage investment experiences to Saïd Business School students. The Fund will be investing in up to four Oxford University-founded businesses or business ideas each year.

Idea Idol

Idea Idol is the flagship business ideas competition run by Oxford Entrepreneurs Student Society. Idea Idol is a competition where any current student at the University of Oxford can present their business idea, based on an initial submission of a 100 word idea, followed by a 1000 word Executive Summary, if shortlisted. This concludes with an Oxford Final where entrants pitch their ideas to a panel of judges. Winners are put forward to an Inter-Varsity final. www.ideaidol.com