NC State University to Host the 2021 ACC InVenture Prize Competition

The Ultimate Entrepreneurship Competition

Most of us think of sports teams when we hear ‘ACC’ – and rightly so. The Atlantic Coast Conference (ACC) is a collegiate athletic conference consisting of fifteen member universities in the eastern United States, spanning from Florida to New York.

But the ACC celebrates more than just student-athletes. The members of the ACC participate in the Atlantic Coast Conference Academic Consortium (ACCAC), a consortium that provides a vehicle for inter-institutional academic and administrative collaboration between member universities. Its mission is to promote the scholarly impact of faculty and the academic success and achievement of its students, including its student-entrepreneurs.

To that end, the ACCAC helps organize various academic initiatives, including the ACC InVenture Prize Competition – a Shark Tank-like innovation competition for teams of undergraduate students from ACC universities. Just like the ACC athletic competitions, the teams that represent each school during the ACC InVenture Prize Competition are considered to be among the top student entrepreneurs in the nation and should be very proud of the accomplishment.

This year, 13 of the 15 ACC schools have signed up for the competition and are sending their best student entrepreneurs to battle it out Shark Tank-style on April 21, 2021, at 7 p.m.

A Little Background on the Competition

This year marks the 5th anniversary of the competition. The competition was first hosted by Georgia Tech in 2016 and it was established that each ACC school would serve as the host university for a term of 2 years. NC State University was selected to host the competition for the 2019 and 2020 academic years; however, due to COVID, the 2020 competition had to be canceled at the last minute. For the very first time since its inception, the ACC InVenture Prize is going virtual for 2021 and North Carolina State University will once again serve as the host university for the competition.

NC State was to host the competition in 2020 but unfortunately had to cancel it a few weeks short of the scheduled date due to the pandemic. “It was a tough decision to cancel the competition last year, but with travel restrictions and health concerns, it was impossible to fly all the competitors to Raleigh,” said Monica Smith, Marketing and Community Development Manager at NC State University. “We knew we could not cancel again this year, so we’ve worked hard to prepare a virtual competition that will showcase the innovation and resilience coming out of the ACC schools,” Smith stated. The competition will be broadcasted via various PBS stations across the ACC and via the ACC InVenture Prize website accinventureprize.com.

Meet the Judges

Each year, three finalists judges are selected to judge the competition. This year NC State has selected three stellar judges. Ravila Gupta, CEO of Bagchi Group; Bob Young, serial entrepreneur and CEO of Lulu.com; and Former New Orleans Saints star receiver, Marques Colston, CEO of Marques Colston Enterprises (MCE).

2021 Competing Teams

Every year, each of the 15 Atlantic Coast Conference universities selects their very best student entrepreneurs to represent them and compete against other ACC schools. Below is the list of teams representing each of the 13 universities competing this year.