About The Event
The fourth annual Ideathon is an immersive seminar on the intersection between technology and business, geared towards UVA students interested in entrepreneurship. Many students have either the technical or business expertise to start a tech startup, but seldom have both. The Ideathon will bridge the gap between these students to help foster entrepreneurship at UVA.
At the Ideathon, students will have the opportunity to:
Match with students with other skills. Students with technical experience can
match with more business minded students. Students with a tech idea can match with students who are
looking for a team to work with.
Meet with and form a lasting bond with a mentor. Teams will meet with
mentors,
either UVA business or engineering faculty, or professionals in the industry, about their ideas.
Mentors and students will swap information and continue to build their relationship and idea well past the
Ideathon.
Attend workshops by experts on digital innovation and marketing. Both
technical and business-minded students can learn from the workshops from UVA faculty and industry
professionals,
on what it takes to build a tech startup.
Pitch their ideas to a Shark Tank-esque board and to their fellow students for
feedback and seed money.
Students will be able to pitch their ideas in both an expo experiment, as well as to a panel of
professionals for feedback and seed money.
Where
UVA Campus, Rouss-Robertson Hall
Rouss Hall and Robertson Hall, 140 Hospital Dr, Charlottesville, VA 22903
When
Saturday, 8 October, 2022
Event Schedule
Check-In
Show up and get signed into the event! Then, have some free Bodo's Bagels!
Opening Ceremony
A brief introduction to the event and messages from our sponsors.
Team Building
Join an existing idea, or find people to help you out with the ones you have!
How to Pitch
Learn tips and tricks to make the perfect pitch!
Workshop: Creativity, Herding, and Groupthinking
Presented by UVA Professor Chris Yung
Lunch
Get your Roots Bowl!
Workshop: Working at an Early Stage Startup: Perspectives and Advice from You.com Engineers
During this workshop, Saahil and David will talk about their work at an early stage startup. Topics will include working at a big company versus a startup, what it's like to work at a startup, iterating to build a product using examples from You.com , and an introduction to the You.com open platform. At the end, there will be a Q&A session.
Idea Generation Ends
Finish your presentations, prep your pitch!
Pitch Presentations
Show off your hard work and great ideas to our judges!
Decisions Out
See which ideas won!
F.A.Q.
-
Why should students come to this
event? What will they get out of it?
A mentor/point of contact and a team for their ideas. An understanding of what a hackathon is, experience in both COMM and CS and their conjunction. A market plan and a CS outline for building their application, free lunch, and potentially extra credit for their classes. Teams will also have the opportunity to win seed money to bring their idea to life.
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What should students be bringing to
this event?
Ideas, if they have them!
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What is expected of mentors (including
time commitment, additional prep, after the ideathon support)?
We would love for mentors to participate for a minimum of one hour, but welcome them to be active for longer. We would also love to have mentors give talks or conduct workshops, if they are interested. We expect mentors to have 30-60 min meetings with each team they mentor and to maintain however much contact teams would like to have after the ideathon.
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How are mentors assigned?
We will not be assigning mentors. Instead, we will ask mentors to come up with a list of information they would need from teams to judge whether or not they would be a good mentor-mentee fit. Then, teams will fill out a form, and mentors can select the teams they feel they would be able to mentor well
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What can sponsors get out of
sponsoring us?
Sponsors can acquaint themselves with UVA students who are passionate about a cool idea with the capability to execute on it. They can also develop relationships with UVA clubs, especially VVF and HooHacks. They can also help foster entrepreneurship at UVA. Contact us for more information about sponsoring our event.
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What do we want out of sponsors?
We would like sponsors to provide us with mentors and/or speakers to give talks/conduct workshops. We would also love it if our attendees could get to form connections with the sponsors for internships, or other learning opportunities.