Turning Designs into Businesses Competition

Cleveland Institute of Art and Weatherhead School of Management

CIA Spring Design Show

For the fourth consecutive year, the Weatherhead School of Management will host the Cleveland Institute of Art's Spring Design Show, which will take place from April 24th to April 27th. The event, which features the work of over 100 Industrial, Interior, and Communication Design students, contains hundreds of ideas that represent the seeds of future business ventures.

Competition Kick-Off

On Wednesday April 25th there will be a quick kick-off for the competition after the presentation from guest speaker Christine Enderby which will take place on the lower level of PBL at 4:30 p.m.

Competition Overview

The Weatherhead School and the Cleveland Institute of Art realize that this show represents a unique opportunity to develop and exercise skills associated with identifying business opportunities and working in a multidisciplinary fashion.

The 'Turning Designs into Businesses' Competition invites MBA students to identify a particular CIA project that they think has business potential and develop a brief prospectus to describe how that potential could be realized.

WSOM students must collaborate with the CIA student whose idea is the basis of the prospectus. Teams should plan to meet and work together to explore and understand the context in which the idea could be developed. Together, teams should consider what it would take to capitalize on the design's potential.

The prize for the winning team is $3000.

See the 2010 competition winners.

Criteria

The criteria used in selecting the winning submission are: Concept and Design, Level of Research, Production Plan, and Business Plan. Each team is expected to create a narrative (using words, pictures and charts) of 12 pages or less that describes the opportunity and includes:

• Summary of the idea
• Analysis of the opportunity
• Overview of the competitive space
• Necessary refinements and development
• Structure of a venture and business model and suggestions for capturing the value in the innovation
• Next steps

Judges will be assembled from both schools, and will also include members of the Cleveland venture capital community.

Deadline: Sunday, May 13

Submission details: Send a .pdf of your prospectus to designsintobusinesses@case.edu. Include in your email: the name of your business venture or product along with the names of all team members; please note each member's degree program and expected graduation year. For the actual PDF file, please exclude all individual names and or schools so that the judging can be completely blind. Winning teams will be announced by May 25th via email and on the competition webpage.

Sponsorship & Press Inquiries: Please contact designsintobusinesses@case.edu.