University of Chicago students affiliated with UChicago Careers in Entrepreneurship competed successfully in two different late-November national events promoting skill in the realms of venture capital investment and startups.
A team of five UChicago students won second place in the third annual national Undergraduate Venture Capital Investment Competition held Nov. 22 at the University of North Carolina.
The competition simulates a venture capital investment cycle in which college teams act as investors, evaluating three real-life startup companies and ultimately choosing one to invest in.
The six participating teams reviewed the startups’ “pitch books,” met with management teams, vetted companies for financial viability and ultimately assigned their choice company a “valuation,” or investment amount, and negotiated with its CEO.
“It was a great experience,” said Clarissa Murra, a fourth-year public policy major and competition participant who wants to pursue a career in venture capital. “We got to learn first-hand what goes on in the venture capital process—there aren’t too many opportunities like that for undergraduates.”
On the startup side, another UChicago team took home honors that same weekend at WildHacks, a “hackathon” sponsored by Northwestern University in which hundreds of students competed to create and present novel technological projects in the space of 24 hours.
“Sleep was optional,” said Adil Tobaa, a third-year majoring in statistics and sociology who, along with three team members, won the Social Innovation Award, a $500 prize from Venture for America, a WildHacks sponsoring organization. The team also received an Honorable Mention from IBM.
Tobaa and teammates developed a website geared toward those who have studied a foreign language and want to retain what they’ve learned by reading online news stories. “At first I was skeptical,” he said. “I was wondering, how are we going to do this in 24 hours?” He said his team got straight to work coding and went all night, stopping only for periodic Red Bull breaks.
Student success at both competitions could point to a generational trend toward an “entrepreneurial mindset,” said Jerry Huang, senior program director of UChicago Careers in Entrepreneurship.
Huang said students’ training in the liberal arts sets them up well for the challenges. “With entrepreneurship, you’re exploring problems, considering options, doing primary and secondary research, taking a stance and acting on that information,” he said. “Students love it because they get to be creative.”
—Prof. Jacqueline Stewart
