November 2, 2011 — The University of Virginia Curry Cup Entrepreneurial Concept Competition will take place Nov. 8 from 8 a.m. until noon in 116 Bavaro Hall. The public is invited to attend the free event and watch 11 teams made up of education students present their ideas, get feedback from experienced judges and vie for top honors – $3,000 for first place, $1,500 for second place and $500 for third place.
The aim of the Curry Cup is to showcase educators’ business ideas or social ventures, which for this competition include a college visitation game to encourage under-served sixth- through 12th-graders to think about college sooner rather than later; a product that allows people with chronic ankle sprains to regain their devil-may-care gait; and Skolar.tv, an easy-to-use method of combining online educational videos from diverse websites and creating online instruction.
The Curry Cup winner will advance to the UVA Cup on Nov. 18 from 1 to 4:30 p.m. at the Darden School’s i.Lab. There, they will compete with other U.Va. areas’ preliminary competition winners. The UVA Cup first-place winner will receive $20,000, second place will get $10,000 and two honorable-mention winners will receive $5,000 each.
So who’s going to take top honors?
Education professor Bob McNergney is betting on the Curry Cup team. “Educators are bright, courteous people, given to collaboration when the opportunity arises. But they can also be fiercely competitive. When serious money is at stake and bragging rights are too, I would bet on the teacher.”
More on the Curry Cup, sponsored by the Curry School Foundation, Curry Education Council and CaseNEX, LLC, is available at: http://curry.virginia.edu/my-curry/current-students/curry-cup or by contacting McNergney at .(JavaScript must be enabled to view this email address).
More details on the UVA Cup, which coincides with Global Entrepreneurship week Nov. 14-20, can be found here: http://conference.darden.virginia.edu/eCup/
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—By Rebecca Pace Arrington
