THE creative minds of WA tertiary IT students are moving into over-drive as they gear up to pitch their most innovative e-business ideas to the who’s who of the local industry.
After a successful inaugural year the World Championship of E-Business Pitches is on again and this year the competition, which was previously exclusive to University of WA students, has been opened to all university and TAFE students across the State.
Jamie Murphy, visiting fellow at UWA’s Information Management and Marketing Department, expected up to 400 students to take part in the competition.
Dr Murphy said students would first pitch their ideas to their classes, with tutors selecting the top 48 students to move into the semi-finals on October 21.
A panel of judges representing government departments and companies such as HarvestRoad, Method, iiNet, Internet Business Corporation, Pivod Technology and Pretzel Logic will then whittle the 48 semi finalists down to 16 finalists, who will compete in the November 1 grand final.
Dr Murphy said the competition was based on a hypothetical scenario where a student was alone in an elevator with a venture capitalist and had two minutes to pitch the e-business idea to them.
“It is a lot of fun for the students and it gets their creative juices flowing, gets them thinking outside the box,” Dr Murphy said.
“We like the idea because it has students speaking in front of a group. And they are also able to strut their stuff in front of Perth’s top IT companies … a few of the finalist received job offers last year.”
