Nominations Now Accepted for 2016 Purdue Entrepreneurship Academy

academy-nominationsHigh school educators, administrators and community leaders in Indiana can nominate current high school sophomores and juniors through Feb. 26 to attend a weeklong entrepreneurship event jointly offered by Purdue Extension and Purdue Foundry.

Nomination forms for the 10th annual Purdue Entrepreneurship Academy can be downloaded by contacting Ryan Wynkoop, special projects coordinator for Indiana 4-H Youth Development, rwynkoop@purdue.edu. There is no fee to nominate a student, nor is there a limit to the number of students who can be nominated from a school. Questions about nominations can be addressed to Wynkoop or Juliana Casavan, entrepreneurial programs manager at Purdue Foundry, jbcasavan@prf.org.

The nationally recognized summer academy will be June 19-24 at Purdue University's West Lafayette campus. Students will compete in teams for the opportunity to win up to $1,000 in college tuition vouchers to attend Purdue.

Students accepted into the program will work in teams on a fundamental business case to determine the best way for the business to compete, identify capital needs to start a business and devise a plan for managing it. On the academy's final day, teams give a 15-minute "investor pitch" to a panel of judges in a business plan competition setting.

Members of the three teams with the highest scores will receive college tuition vouchers, ranging from $100 to $500, to pursue a degree at Purdue. All students who complete the program will have one course requirement waived toward the university's Entrepreneurship & Innovation Certificate program. At the end of the program, one student will receive the David E. Ross Award for Entrepreneurial Distinction. This peer-selected recognition carries with it a $500 tuition voucher.