Rubber Band Competition Stretches Students' Entrepreneurial Skills

STANFORD, Calif.--(BUSINESS WIRE)--When the university kicked off its 2nd annual Entrepreneurship Week on Friday, Feb. 22, Stanford also launched the global Innovation Tournament, a fast and furious competition to see who could create the most value from rubber bands in only five days. Students were told on Friday afternoon that they had until Thursday morning to conceive and deliver their value and submit a short video online to present their results. They could form a team of any size, use as many rubber bands as they wanted and define value in any way they chose. Approximately 300 student teams from universities around the globe participated.

The results were remarkable: a new, more effective and inexpensive mosquito net design for impoverished areas battling malaria; the "Do Bands" campaign to inspire people to get things done, which raised over $500 for charity and spawned a new social network online; hilarious, late-night infomercial spoofs touting new products such as "Shoe Bands" and "The Habit Breaker;" a model used to teach aspects of Einstein's theory of relativity; a new painting technique; a community art project; and so much more. Winning submissions can be viewed at http://eweek.stanford.edu

All entries were viewed and judged by a panel of prestigious Silicon Valley leaders that included inventors, venture capitalists, journalists and executives. They awarded an array of unique, experiential prizes that included dinners and meetings with top executives at Silicon Valley companies; yachting on the San Francisco Bay; the opportunity to see Al Gore speak in person; box seats to a professional hockey game; a handmade guitar worth more than $2,000; and other special awards.

According to Tina Seelig, executive director of the Stanford Technology Ventures Program and the director of the Stanford Entrepreneurship Network, "If a bunch of students can generate this much impact in their spare time in only five days with basically no resources, there is no limit to the problems they can solve if they put their minds to it. Entrepreneurship is essentially about identifying opportunities, leveraging limited resources and creating value - and these students proved it."

Entrepreneurship is of enormous interest on campus, because the Stanford community recognizes that the 21st century will belong to innovators who can turn ideas into action. Stanford believes that entrepreneurship can, indeed, be taught and that the learning process should be experiential. The Innovation Tournament was created to give students an entrepreneurship immersion experience by allowing them to simulate the value creation process of a start-up in a condensed time frame.

It was all part of Entrepreneurship Week hosted by the Stanford Entrepreneurship Network, a federation of organizations across campus. The week's events included presentations by prestigious speakers; roundtable discussions; mixers; Venture Capital/student "speed dating" allowing students to pitch their ideas; and a start-up job fair. The high-energy documentary film, Imagine It!, also made its world premiere; it captures the dreams and excitement of last year's Innovation Tournament featuring Post-It Notes® as the challenge object and stars student teams from Stanford and around the world. It can be viewed or downloaded from http://www.imagineitproject.com.

In November, 2008, Stanford will host a new version of the Innovation Tournament as part of Global Entrepreneurship Week, and all schools around the world are invited to participate. To learn more and sign up for updates, visit http://eweek.stanford.edu.

About the Stanford Entrepreneurship Network

Serving as a single point of contact for entrepreneurship at Stanford University, the Stanford Entrepreneurship Network (SEN) is a federation of nearly 20 entrepreneurship-related organizations across campus that conduct research, teach and/or provide outreach services. Most of the member organizations serve not just Stanford students, the Stanford community and Silicon Valley, but also other students and members of the entrepreneurial ecosystem worldwide. SEN also serves as a forum for communication and collaboration among its member organizations.