Do You Have an Idea for a Product or Service that:

The I2S is for current Georgia Tech students and recent alumni who have a very early stage product/serve idea or venture concept that is focused on creating a better world. All great ventures and organizations begin with great ideas. The I2S is a competition of ideas; where creativity, imagination, and technology are applied to:

• Solving community and social issues (for example reducing the effects of poverty, alleviating hunger, promoting physical and psychological health and wellness); and/or
• Sustaining our environment (for example improved water management, improved air and water quality, reduction of the rate of depletion of natural resources, developing alternate sources of energy).

As ideas eventually lead to organizations, to be sustainable, the organizations themselves must be able to generate sufficient income flows to provide returns for investors (for for-profits) as well as to sustain over time the mission of the organization (for for-profits as well as non-profits). Simply put, organizations today need to be focused on the triple bottom line of return on investment economically, environmentally, and socially. In the I2S Competition, teams develop an idea/concept, an initial business model, and a feasibility analysis. The idea must be based on either an innovative approach/technology to solving a social problem or uses technology to sustain the environment. Refer to 2009 I2S Finalists (below) for examples for the types of ideas that are important to this competition.

The I2S is one of three competitions at Georgia Tech that are intended to specifically encourage creativity in product design, the application of technology for new products and services, and technology entrepreneurship. The InVenture Prize (http://inventureprize.gatech.edu/) is an innovation competition for undergraduate students at Georgia Tech. Students who participate in the Inventure Competition are encouraged to enter the I2S if their product/service concept meets the I2S eligibility criteria. Also graduate students and certain alumni not eligible for InVenture are welcome to participate the I2S. The Georgia Tech Business Plan Competition (http://mgt.gatech.edu/fac_research/centers_initiatives/bpc/index.html) is intended for ideas that have advanced beyond the I2S/InVenture stage -- ideas that are business concepts that have developed to the point that full business plans can be prepared. Generally participants in the BPC have fully developed product concepts, market, operational, and financial strategies. Participants in InVenture or the I2S would be expected to "graduate up" to the BPC a year after competing in the InVenture/I2S competitions. The BPC is for technology ventures and unlike the I2S is not solely focused on social or environmental applications.

To participate in the I2S:

Teams must develop a brief executive summary of their idea, including its technological and "market" feasibility. The competition itself proceeds in two phases. The Preliminary Round will be a Poster Competition. The Final Round will be oral presentations. More details follow later on this page. The I2S is also supported by a series of two optional workshops. The purpose of the workshops are to help students get focused on developing ideas for "triple bottom line" organizations, as well as learning how to approximate the likely social impact or market potential to determine idea feasibility. Teams are not required to attend the workshops but the intent of the workshops is to be helpful and to advance student skills in early stage social and for profit entrepreneurial planning activities.

2010 I2S Sponsors

iLE -- Institute of Leadership and Entrepreneurship
Lambda Sigma Honor Society
MaRC Sustainable Design & Manufacturing
Brook Byers Institute for Sustainable Systems
The Arthur M. Blank Family Foundation
The Georgia Tech College of Management