About The Event
The fifth 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, Rice Hall
Rice Hall, 85 Engineer's way, Charlottesville, VA 22903
When
Saturday, 14 October, 2023
Event Schedule
Here is our event schedule
Check-In + Breakfast
Show up and get signed into the event! Then, have some free Bodo's Bagels! Check-In (Front of Rice); Breakfast (Davis Commons)
Opening Ceremony
A brief introduction to the event and messages from our sponsors. (Rice 130)
Team Building
Join an existing idea, or find people to help you out with the ones you have! (Rice 130)
Workshop 1: Patient Safety 101 with Dr. Glasgow
Learn about Patient Safety! (Rice 130)
Lunch
Rice Basement
Workshop 2: Principles of Effective Teamwork
Presented by UVA Professor Derrick Stone (Rice 130)
SUBMISSIONS DUE
Finish your presentations, prep your pitch!
Pitch Presentations and Judging
Show off your hard work and great ideas to our judges!
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 two hours, 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 20-30 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, mentors would be sitting in the davis commons where teams can come and ask questions like office hours style. Mentors are welcome to walk around to individual teams if they prefer to do so.
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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.