Guidelines

Open submissions begin online January 9, 2012. Specific guidelines for submitting materials for each subsequent round of the competition will be sent to semifinalist and finalist teams directly. 

Jump To

• Eligibity
• Guidelines
• Prizes
• Important Dates
• Format
• Judging Criteria

Eligibility

• NYU-Poly, NYU College of Arts and Sciences, and NYU-Abu Dhabi undergraduate and graduate students in good academic standing with full-time status (students from other colleges and universities aren't eligible). Teams are limited to 1–3 students.

General Guidelines

• You can submit multiple entries
• If you're a past winner, you cannot submit previous entries
• Teams who enter and win will split the award among team members

Prizes

1st Place: $5,000 | 2nd Place: $3,000 | 3rd Place: $1,500 | People Choice: $200

Winners will also have free access to a number of mentoring opportunities as well as a patent attorney, who will assist with securing patent protection for the first place winner in each category.

Winners will be announced at NYU-Poly’s first ever i²e Gala at the Empire State Building. 

2012 Important Dates

Public Vote and Juried Executive Summary
Jan 30 Online statements and executive summary submissions due
Jan 31 Online voting begins
Feb 6 Semifinalists and People's Choice winner announced

Semifinals with Juried Review
Mar 1 Semifinalist review due
Mar 6 Finalists announced

Finals with Juried Presentation
Apr 5 Live presentations, winners announced, i²e Gala

Format

1. Open Submissions

Teams can enter the competition from January 9 through January 30, 2012. Entries received after midnight on January 30, 2012 will not be reviewed.

Teams must enter the competition on poly.edu and separately submit a 2-page executive summary of their idea using a our private executive summary upload form. 

NOTE: Please protect your intellectual privacy. While teams are required to create a public online entry, NYU-Poly strongly urges teams to NOT reveal sensistive intellectual property or easy to copy ideas in their public-facing profile. This space should only state the team's title for their idea, the problem the team is trying to solve, and why that problem is significant. 

Entries will be ranked by public online voting. The public must register in order to vote, and each registered member of the public will only be allowed to vote once on each entry. The public will rank submissions using a star system. Each entry will be given a rank between 1 and 5 stars. This rank will account for 15% of the entry's score for the first round.

Each entry's 2-page executive summary will be reviewed by our panel of judges in accordance with the judging criteria. 

2. Semifinalist Submissions

Up to 15 undergraduate teams and 15 graduate teams will be named semifinalists. Semifinalists will be announced by email and online on Feb 6, 2012.

During the semifinalist round, teams will be working with mentors to expand their original 2-page executive summary into a 5-page executive review with a cursory overview of how their idea can be reduced to practice. 

3. Finalist Presentations

Up to 5 undergraduate and 5 graduate teams will be selected to move on as finalists. Finalists will be announced by email and online on Mar 6, 2012. 

Finalist teams will continue to receive mentoring and will get access to intellectual property lawyers.  Finalists are allowed to revise and resubmit their 5 page executive review.  Finalists will also deliver a live 5 minute presentation of their idea followed by 10 minutes of Q&A. This session will be open to the public.

Judging Criteria

The judging criteria will be continuous throughout each round of the competition. Sound Idea submissions will demonstrate:

1. Potential Impact

• Does the idea address a real world problem?
• Does the idea have significant societal value?
• Does the idea impact many people on a small level, or few people on a deep level?

2. Patentability

• Is there a utility to the idea?
• Is the idea unobvious?
• Is the idea or approach novel?

3. Feasibility of Reducing the Idea to Practice

• Is the cost/benefit ratio to prototype realistic?
• Are there any serious engineering or other challenges to the implementation of the idea?

4. Potential for Commercialization

Note: this is not a business plan competition; however the ability of a market to develop a concept and keep it in production is directly related to possible/probably impact assessment.

Scoring

75% Judging criteria listed above
10% Presentation of idea 
15% Online voting (first round only)