Last week, students from around the world met at Silicon Valley for an entrepreneurial experience: the Intel Global Challenge at UC Berkeley. 28 teams from more than 20 countries made it through to the challenge finals, with their ideas around the internet, mobile, software computing, social innovation and hardware impressing the judges.
During the week, the teams met with several venture capitalists and investors in a “speed dating” style networking event, as well as hearing from experts in entrepreneurship including Guy Kawasaki, the Silicon Valley author. David Riemer taught the participants a lesson about the importance of storytelling when seeking to persuade investors about the viability of their business idea. The session certainly had an impact: the Romanian students from Gamelon blew the audience away with their improved pitch, eventually winning first prize for their presentation. Another crucial lesson for the students was the importance of understanding the customer. Steve Blank, serial entrepreneur, author and lecturer made it very clear that unless you have spoken to at least one hundred customers, your business plan is not worth the paper it is written on.
At the end of the week, Chilean team, Mobile Monitoring Station, was crowned the overall winner with their incredibly forward-thinking set of portable sensors for industrial workers. The technology draws biomedical data, such as heart rate, in real time and can be applied directly to the workers' clothes, transmitting valuable biomedical information to devices such as smartphones, before being pushed to the cloud. The team expects the sensors to result in a considerable drop in health dangers in this industry.
However, a huge amount of talent and innovation was also showcased across Europe, Middle East and Africa; we had teams participating from a wide range of countries from Denmark to Egypt, Jordan to Russia.
Gameleon, from Romania won a first prize in category for developing a cloud-based platform that allows anyone to create, publish, play and monetise web games with only a browser, regardless of programming skills or experience. Tensive of Italy was awarded for the development of implantable biomaterials for the reconstruction of large bone and tissue defects, caused by osteoporosis, trauma or tumor removal. The patented technology replicates the patient's blood vessels and accelerates the natural regeneration of bone and tissue.
In total, the Intel Foundation awarded $100,000 total in cash prizes, including a $50,000 grand prize and three $10,000 awards for teams taking first place. This is part of Intel’s long standing commitment to support the next generation and tackle the skills shortage which could otherwise blight the future of technological innovation. Entrepreneurship is critical to growth for individuals, businesses and economies and through initiatives such as the Intel Global Challenge, students around the world gain lifelong entrepreneurship and innovation skills they can apply throughout their careers.
This competition is testament to the fact that, when supported, young people have the potential to create ideas which can truly enhance our society. If governments, industries, educational establishments and businesses work together, the future looks bright for innovation, technology and - most importantly - the next generation…