Rotary Den Pitch Competition
Now in its second year, the Rotary Den pitch competition is a collaboration between three colleges (Bow Valley College, Medicine Hat College and Olds College) and three Rotary Clubs (Calgary Heritage Park, Medicine Hat Sunrise and Olds) that gives away $9,000 in cash.
Students enter the competition by answering questions about their product/service, target market, business model, value proposition, the positive social impact their business has and submitting a 2-3 minute video about their idea.
Members of the local rotary clubs then score the submissions by students of their local college and the top two from each college proceed to the finals.
The six finalists have five minutes to pitch their idea to the judges and receive feedback from the judges on their idea.
The winner from each college receives $2,000 cash and the second-place winner from each college receives $1,000 cash.
At the end of the night, the crowd picks what they think is the best pitch of all six with the winner receiving a $500 US scholarship to a virtual two-week program called the Fundamentals of Entrepreneurship.
During the Fundamentals of the Entrepreneurship program, the winning student has the opportunity to receive a $12,000 US scholarship to a five-week in-person Bootcamp that is billed as the top entrepreneurship program in Silicon Valley.
Past Alberta students have returned from that Bootcamp with six-figure investments and pictures of them on a private jet with an investor worth 1.5 Billion dollars.
Contact Craig Elias at Bow Valley College if you have any questions about the competition.