The McGinnis Venture Competition is open to all current Carnegie Mellon University undergraduate and graduate students who have created, managed and owned ventures.

A CMU student should be CEO, CTO or COO. Members of the student team should also own a significant majority of the equity allocated to all parties. Non-CMU students may be members of the venture’s management team and may participate; however, current CMU students should deliver the majority of the content in all of the rounds.

How to determine which track you are competing in:

• If you have all undergraduate students on your team you will be considered in the undergraduate track.
• If you have all graduate students on your team you will be considered in the graduate track.
• If your team is made up of both graduate and undergraduate students you will be considered in the graduate track. You will not be eligible to compete in the undergraduate track.

Should I opt in to be considered for the Social Enterprise Prize?

Ready to create a company that makes an impact on the world's biggest challenges? Opt-in to compete for the Social Enterprise Prize in addition to the McGinnis Venture Competition. This track is designed to empower students to develop entrepreneurial solutions for social and environmental challenges. Open to both for-profit and nonprofit ideas.

Why join?

• Prizes!
  • Full list of prizes will be announced in November
• For-Profit & Nonprofit Ideas Welcome!
  Whether you want to create a nonprofit/NGO or mission-driven for-profit startup with a triple bottom line (profit, planet, people) this is your opportunity!
• Path to the $1M EF Hult Prize!
  Compete for a chance to automatically advance to the US Nationals of the prestigious EF Hult Prize – the ultimate global competition for student social entrepreneurs! This is decided in the second round of the competition
• If you are opting-in for this, you must also "Register to Compete" via the button on the EF HULT Prize website as well.

Deliverables: Mini Business Plan [pdf] + 12 Slide Pitch Deck [Google Slides] + Live 8-minute pitch

*Final round slides must be submitted in standard PowerPoint format: Final round slides can be created in whatever platform you prefer; however you must export them into standard PowerPoint to make sure that all videos are embedded and working. Test this by turning off your wifi to make sure all slides work. 

*Round 3 teams are required to attend the peer to peer pitch review session on MONDAY, March 1. Failure to attend will eliminate you from the competition. 

The authors of the executive summaries and mini business plans will retain all rights to the executive summaries and mini business plans regarding its use at all times prior to and following the competition except as stated below. Due to the nature of the competition, we will not ask judges, reviewers, staff or the audience to agree to or sign non-disclosure statements for any participant.

All public sessions of the competition, including, but not limited to, oral presentations and question/answer sessions, are open to the public at large. Any and all of these public sessions may be broadcast to interested persons through media that may include radio, television and the internet. Any data or information discussed or divulged in public sessions by entrants should be considered information that will likely enter the public realm, and entrants should not assume any right of confidentiality in any data or information discussed, divulged or presented in these sessions.

Carnegie Mellon University may make photocopies, photographs, videotapes and/or audiotapes of the presentations including the business plan and other documents, charts or material prepared for use in presentation at the McGinnis Venture Competition. Students retain all proprietary rights. The university may use the materials in any book or other printed materials and any videotape or other medium that it may produce, provided that any profits earned from the sale of such items is used by the university solely to defray the costs of future competitions. The university has non-exclusive world rights in all languages, and in all media, to use or to publish the materials in any book, other printed materials, videotapes or other medium, and to use the materials in future editions thereof and derivative products.

View our judging guidelines

View our coaching guidelines