> Home
> About the Award
> The Process
> Participating Schools

> Alumni
> Media
> Contact Us

Crank-It Up

Participant: Ben Agbonkhese and Sophie Decker, Acadia University
Business name: Rhythm Clothing and Music
Concept: a vertically integrated corporation that revolves around and celebrates the hip hop industry. Rhythm will meet the needs of an unsatisfied market by promoting the hip hop community in Halifax and eventually across Canada. The end goal and vision is to offer a sensational variety of creative hip hop products and services including clothing, a music store, a production company, a clothing label, a dance studio and a magazine. More Finalists >

Overview
Local Competition
National Competition
Judging
2008 Judges
Award Ceremony

>
>
>
>
>

“Ladies and gentlemen - start your engines!”

The Nicol Entrepreneurial Awards gets jumpstarted by Local Competitions at each participating university. In keeping with the entrepreneurial theme and focus of the event, the Award organizers defer to the judgment of each school to develop a competition process that works for them.

• Schools may impose their own restrictions in terms of the format or composition of the team plans.
• Organizers do expect plans to follow modern conventions as to layout, length etc.

Local Competitions are a frenzy of excitement and activity with contenders pitching the merits of their team’s concept - and demonstrating entrepreneurial savvy - in a quest to get to the National Wes Nicol Award competition.

Basic guidelines for all participants and schools

Each school is provided with the following basic guidelines and criteria that must be respected:

• The Local Competition must be open to students from all faculties across the university. Cross-functional teams are encouraged, and there is a maximum of three members per team.
• Only venture-creation plans that are entering their first competition are welcome. Business and venture-creation plans that have been test-driven at other awards competitions are not eligible for the Wes Nicol Award.
• The use of mentors to work with each of the student groups is encouraged. Mentors are venture capitalists, angel investors, or service professionals selected from the local community.
• A short list of teams at the local level competes by presenting their venture-creation plans to a local team of judges. Typically local judges are members of faculty, local business people, alumni, and other recognizable entrepreneurs from the community.

What's a "Venture-Creation" Plan?

One of the major differentiators between The Nicol Entrepreneurial Awards and other business-plan competitions is that here at the "Nicol" we're particularly interested in proposals with the potential of becoming a commercial reality: "venture-creation" plans to fuel the Canadian economy. Busiiness plans connotate more of an academic project that is over when the competition ends.

Cash prizes awarded

The Nicol Entrepreneurial Award provides $10,000 to each participating university to support their Local Competition.

At the discretion of each university, a minimum of $8,000 and a maximum of $10,000 will be awarded to the top three teams in the following ratios:

• Universities providing $8,000 in prize money: $5,000 for first place, $2,000 for second, and $1,000 for third.
• Universities providing $10,000 in prize money: $6,000 for first place, $3,000 for second, and $1,000 for third.

Although the first-place cash prize is a tidy sum, few if any of our winning teams participate for the money. The greatest reward is the process itself and the experience of pushing themselves in new ways. It is the opportunity to qualify for National Wes Nicol Award, hear the wise advice of the judges, and meet the inspiring crowd of potential investors and fellow entrepreneurs that is the real reward.

National Award

Each of the winning teams at participating Local Competitions and the top two teams from this year's Regional are invited to submit their plans as part of a pre-screening process for the National Award. This process involves:

• Members of the judging panel reviewing the plans from the view point of a venture capitalist, with the goal of narrowing down the list to the top six plans.
• The winner of the National Award from the previous year receives an automatic invitation.
• The top six teams and their faculty sponsor will be invited to Ottawa to participate in the National Wes Nicol Award competition.