Frequently Asked Questions
Questions
Answers
All entering teams must all be Murdoch Undergraduate students who haven't received any outside funding for their business idea.
There will be a Resources page on the website and you might want to consider adding a teammate who might possess the work experience or knowledge that your team currently lacks. You are also able to ask the competition organisers to allocate your team a mentor who should be able to assist your team.
Yes. An entry may be entered by a single person or a group of people. The size of a team is restricted to 4 people per team. We do suggest that an individual considering entering the competition would be better off forming a team of 3-4 people to make use of the range of skills that a teammate may possess.
No. We welcome applications from individuals and from teams (ie 2 or more participants). We encourage you to consider bringing additional and complementary skills to your entry through extra team members.
There is no rule preventing one person from being on more than one team. However, individuals are highly encouraged to concentrate their efforts on the one enterprise with the greatest chance of success.
Yes, additional members may be added to the team up to one week before the deadline for submitting the final entry for each competition. The Competition Organising Committee needs to be informed as to any change to the team.
Yes, postdoctoral students and postgraduate research students are eligible to register and compete in the Post Graduate competition.
The competition is designed to assist entrepreneurs who are either thinking of setting up a business or who are in the very early stages of having set up a business. The organisers will therefore evaluate entries from already established businesses on an individual basis to decide whether or not they are suitable for the competition.
Teams are allowed and encouraged to seek funding during the course of the competition for their business idea.
As long as the entries have not received funding via that or another company for the purpose of expanding the business idea and the rights to the use of the business idea and its related intellectual property is held by the team entrants. The Competition Coordinators or Murdoch University will take no responsibility should a Company who wishes to pursue entrants that have sourced their business idea or concept through incorrect means take any legal proceedings.
We suggest that before entering you take advice from your host institution's intellectual property or legal office on this and any other potential third party rights that might be claimed. If there is a high likelihood that they can assert ownership you may want to reconsider whether or not you should submit this idea to the competition.
The organizers of the Competition are committed to preserving the confidentiality of the Business Plan entries however the Business Presentation entrants are required to make a presentation to the public regarding their business idea or concept and it is suggested that each group should not disclose any privileged information that they do not want to become public knowledge. It is suggested that highly sensitive material be excluded from the entry if a team is concerned about the confidentiality of such material. If you feel that significant confidentiality issues may arise with other team members in the course of preparing your plan, you should have a thorough understanding between group members worked out in advance.
At this stage we have a number of workshops planned through the semester up to the final submissions for the competition. Places will be allocated according to demand, however all members of each team that enters will be offered places and others outside the competition are encouraged to attend.
Yes. If you feel it would be useful we will send you copies of the notes from the workshops. However, workshops will be extremely valuable, so we strongly recommend that you attend if possible.
No, we welcome ideas for service businesses too.
No, we expect to see ideas for ventures that could be of different shapes and sizes. By participating you will learn more about the potential for your idea.
We would still encourage you to participate, at this stage you may have a restricted view on the potential for your idea. Similarly it may be the judges' view that your idea is really more suited to exploitation through the licensing route.
Financial sponsors of the Competition will receive prominent name recognition in all promotional activities related to the contest. However, sponsors will not be given exclusive access to the list of submitted business plans or teams.
The goal of the contest is to create a forum for entrepreneurs to present their ideas and provide them access to mentoring and resources that enable new venture creation. We are dedicated to this goal and encourage anyone to contact contestants directly to assist their efforts in forming a new venture.
However, financial sponsorship is necessary to generate enough interest among potential contestants to ensure a competitive, high quality event. To this end, a significant portion of the contest's financial sponsorship has been earmarked for prize money. Furthermore we are also supported by generous individuals and organizations who have committed to in-kind donations (such as free software, books and/or services) to contestants.
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