Clarkson Colleagues,
We had a great info session on Monday about Clarkson’s partnership with the Conrad Foundation and our role in the Conrad Challenge for high school students interested in sharing their passion for innovation and entrepreneurship. This is a great potential pipeline to recruit new Clarkson students!
The Conrad team now has over 450+ high school teams competing in the Conrad Challenge and need online judges of business plans in six categories: 1) Energy & Environment; 2) Aerospace & Aviation, 3) Cyber-technology & Security; 4) Health & Nutrition; 5) A Smoke Free World and 6) Transforming Education with Technology. WE THINK THIS IS A GREAT OPPORTUNITY FOR CLARKSON FACULTY & STAFF TO JOIN THE PARTNERSHIP!
The Conrad Team will be accepting registrations for judges now through the holidays, and then when we come back for the new semester — around January 15 — they will send out the packets to the judges who then have 3-4 weeks to complete the judging (all completed online). There will be between 3-6 Teams per judge and each Team takes approximately 45 – 60 minutes each to review, score and provide valuable feedback. This can be done at your leisure within the 3-4 week timeframe and all online!
We encourage you to sign up NOW so you start getting communications from the Conrad Team, start interfacing with students and so the partnership has a solid base of judges moving into the New Year! More information from the Foundation is below. Thank you again and let me know if you have any questions.
Kelly Chezum, VP For External Relations
kchezum@clarkson.edu
READ THE BLUEPRINTS OF THE FUTURE!
The Conrad Challenge is an excellent opportunity for industry, government, research and academia to help support the youth of today and take an active role in shaping our future workforce. Each year, we seek out individuals willing to serve as judges during the Business Plan round of the competition, as well as on-site judges during our Conrad Innovation Summit.
Benefits
- Opportunity to exercise your specialized industry knowledge and experience and to “give back”
- Inspire students to pursue STEM careers
- Encourage the next generation of entrepreneurs to use their innovations to make a real-world impact
- Take your seat as a judge on Shark Tank… student edition!
Responsibilities
- Review, score and provide feedback on 3-5 business plans from student teams from around the globe
- Follow the judges’ rubric and expectations shared prior to each judging opportunity
- Provide thoughtful, constructive and age-appropriate feedback for each submitted project
- Complete submission review and comments prior to the judging deadline
- Agree to confidentiality terms that protect students’ intellectual property
- Note: Business Plan Judging occurs entirely online
Time Commitment
Business Round judges will be provided multiple student team projects to review in mid-January. All judges will have 3-4 weeks to submit feedback to the Conrad Challenge team. Judge selection and specific instructions will be sent to each judge individually prior to the review period.
In addition, Business Round judges are invited to participate in the final round of competition at the Conrad Innovation Summit (April 23-27, 2018) at the Kennedy Space Center Visitor Complex in Florida. Judges must attend in person to participate in this round of the competition as the top 5 teams in each category will present their presentations in-person at the Summit. On-site judge training will be provided.
Register
Please visit the following link to sign up: REGISTER HERE
