hear your posts now you can keep letting people in. Hi, there's always a few. Hi everyone. How are you?
Any particular place
you'd like me in the room? Or just, Hey everyone, this.
Can you all hear me? Okay, I'm coming through the room. Audio. Okay, great. We're going to give it a couple more minutes for students and others to join in person, but I'm going to come clean and share a mistake that we had, which was that when we sent out the registration form, we did not ask for emails. And so unfortunately, seven people registered and didn't have emails to send them the virtual link. Hopefully some of them are just on their way in person, but I'm going to drop the virtual zoom link in the chat. If you know of of student entrepreneurs that meant to join in person, if you can help me, forward this to them. We added the Zoom link to the website as well as the registration form. So if they go back to those pages,
they can access the Zoom link
and we will also record. We recording now we will be recording and so we'll be able to share it out with folks as well.
Great.
Here's something about that simple. Give it a few minutes. Yeah, we
got a couple of people outside getting grabbing lunch, so everyone on Zoom, just hang out for A couple minutes and we'll get started. Okay. Thank
you. I safely bought camera.
Yes,
they don't. They don't.
Space. Station such Hello,
you say, because it's going to be
requirements will go To the internal policy. I'll start with background.
Folks online, you guys want to drop in The chat, like what institution you're from, Introduce yourself.
You could see it, I think it okay for students.
All right, everyone, okay. I feel like Ardys, could you turn the camera this way a little bit, since I might be going to this a little bit. Hi, everyone. Welcome. This is for the Maryland student adventure showcase and pelvic Innovation Awards information session. We have a bunch of people online, and we have probably some more joining in person as well. I'm just going to fully call this out at the top that we when we set up the registration, we accidentally forgot to ask for emails, and so I didn't quite get to add send out the Zoom link to every single registrant, although we did add the Zoom link to the website, to the registration page and to our steering committee members. So students, if you know of anyone that any of your colleagues, that you know they were intending to join, I ask you to just help us share the Zoom link out to them. But let's we're going to get started with today. We are going to walk through a little bit of background with Maryland student adventure showcase. And Paul showcase and Palma Innovation Awards. We'll take you back through the history and a little bit of the last year cycle. We will then spend the bulk of the information session on the eligibility requirements and timeline and save a lot of time for questions. Okay, that's all good. Okay, awesome. Can you guys all see it?
Okay, okay, cool.
Okay, so first to start, what is the poet innovation awards in the Maryland student adventure showcase we're going to present the screen. I
Okay, so in 2024 the Pava Pava la Pere legacy and Innovation Act was passed, and that passed the Pava acceleration grant program, which set aside $450,000 um, $150,000 for student ventures, so in the form of $50,000 awards for up to nine ventures. So with that being passed in 2024 we got started and had the first cycle in 2024 and had the first showcase February of 2025 that said the grant Acceleration Program, or the awards were available to 20 eligible colleges and universities in the Baltimore region, or what we say, the Baltimore Metropolitan Statistical Area, which includes, like I said, 20 colleges and universities. In the first year out of those 20, we had about 13 participate, and by that we mean we had steering committee members. We actually had steering committee members from 19 out of the 20 eligibility, eligible institutions, but 13 ultimately nominated student ventures for the first cycle. We through those 13, they nominated up to four per institution, so we ended up with 39 nominated student ventures for the first year, which was super exciting. And then we had the Maryland student adventure showcase in February of 2025 earlier this year, each of the nine selected student ventures received $50,000 each, and then have been kind of ushered into the ecosystem, from with support from Ted Cohen UpSurge to have wraparound support To help them scale and grow here in Maryland.
Okay, apply that.
With that said, most of this conversation, we're going to spend time looking at the website. Before we do that, I just want to take the opportunity. I'm going to stop sharing, because we actually have one of we have one of the student ventures from our first cycle here. Andres is here is the founder of degree map. Would you like to come up here?
Sure.
So Andres, I would love for you to share about your venture and also what the process was like for you to be awarded the pelvic Innovation Awards.
Sure. So nice to meet everyone. My name is Andres. I am actually a co founder of a software development company called go hand. And our venture comes through our software company called Big remap. What the green map is, it's, it's a tool that helps students build a degree completion plans. One of the requirements by state law in Maryland is that students, undergraduates who have completed at least 45 credits, complete a degree completion plan, and they have to submit that to their advisors. And one of the biggest problems is that the current process for creating these plans is very manual. Here at Towson University, for example, we use a Microsoft Excel spreadsheet, and students end up submitting these things with mistakes all the time, and advisors can also make mistakes. And so what you end up with is Students who miss their graduation target dates because they're working off of bad plans and they can't graduate on time. Okay, so that's what our venture is. In terms of the process, it was very quick. I do remember that we submitted our our application. I think it was January, and then, with the help of everyone at UpSurge and Teca, we fortunately were selected.
So I'll ask a couple like moderated questions. So first, how did you first find out about the pop Innovation Awards opportunity?
We found out they're here through the through the start. Yeah, that's Towson University.
So yeah, okay, and what was the process like to prepare your materials for application?
Yeah, we have to come up with a presentation pretty quickly. I would say it was felt for us, very rushed. It was very last minute, it seemed. But, you know, we understood, it's the first one and so. But again, we had a lot of help.
And to that point, your help. How did your Towson steering committee member play a role in this big
not only, we found out and had a presentation done within, like, the first within a week, I think I would say, but they a lot of help with the presentation. We kind of did a lot of practice sessions with the presentation so
and then, what was the preparation for the showcase? Like between January and
February, non stop practice, not just here at the startup, but presenting with, you know, with help from UpSurge as well, we were presenting, not just to our advisors here, but at UpSurge as well, big health a lot of great feedback throughout the process.
Now, post showcase, can you share a little bit about how your company's grown, how the showcase and where the awards have supported and also, I know of other successes you've had, so please share.
Yeah, so since we actually did win another rant a few months later, the BI award, and since we we won the Cabo, it definitely has helped us, not just from monetary perspective, but the tools that we were given, founder track and access to everybody at TECHO, pretty much we are developers, so we're not business folks. And through tech, through the help of everyone at TECHO, and through founder track, we we had to take a step back and really think of things from a business perspective. And so that, I think has been one of the biggest helps for us to really understand we can't just hide behind a computer all day and code. We have to actually be out here and thinking about the business perspective.
So awesome. Well, Andres is here. He works out of the startup sometimes, and so if you all have any questions for him or want to mingle with him. He'll be around.
Okay. Thank you.
So, as you all heard from Andres experience, there are a couple key things that we'll we'll touch on as we go through the eligibility and the timeline. One thing I'll note is that we have more time this year, because, I think he said he felt very rushed, and that was because, you know, the legislation passed last year, and we had to get the process rock and enroll in as soon as possible and from scratch. But the good news is, this is our second year. We're not starting from scratch, and we've been able to start earlier and actually provide these virtual and hybrid information sessions, which we had not provided last year. So we're hoping that this helps grow the reach to more student entrepreneurs that may not have heard about it given the more limited outreach last year. So excited about that. All right, I'm going to start sharing. Oh, by the way, I wanted to share because, well, Wendy said such a great venture mission Andres double crown, Paul Lucas Innovation Award and PII award. Bii is the Baltimore Innovation Initiative Award, which, if you want to hear more about it, support us to hear from TEDCO, and we'll be able to answer
some questions about it.
Okay, so first things first, I want to make sure that everyone has the Maryland student venture showcase website. It is UpSurge baltimore.com, forward slash, MD, dash, student dash ventures. This should be sent out as widely as possible. It's on our social media and so forth. This will have a lot of background information. Also link you to the interest form, as well as eligibility requirements. Like, I like we already started with. Here's some of the background about the Innovation Act. I encourage you, you click on this to view the legislation itself. This was more about the information session, of course. And then a so am I recording? I just realized it is recording. Okay? And then this is the form that we're going or this is the page that we're going to dive deep into. But I just wanted to move forward a little bit to show you a little bit of a look back. You can see some images from last year's showcase. This is a high level, high level information about last year. So showcase. And you can also check out the info photo gallery if you're interested. We had about over 400 attendees at the at that point, newly minted for MLK on UMD campus. So it's really great space. And as you can see from these photos, some of the not awarded but nominated ventures were able to table and also showcase their ventures there. I can't promise that we will have that opportunity again. It really just depends on space, but we hope to be able to showcase as many different student entrepreneurs as possible. So just wanted to share a couple photos, and you can peruse that on your own as well. And if you continue scrolling down, you can see the last year's innovation awardees and their companies here, and then also the eligible institutions and your steering committee representative. That is really, really important to know, because, as you heard from Andres experience, your steering committee representative will be really important to your success, as well as to your ultimate nomination. The key is that the steering committee members at each institution are the ones making the nominations, and so they have to decide that you are one of the four ventures that they can nominate, and of course, they have a vested interest in your success, so they will work hand in hand with you to prepare your application and materials if you'd like. You can also look at our core advisory board. Those are the individuals that are part of the Genesis and also a cross section of representation from across private universities, public universities, community colleges that help advise us along this process as well. Any questions so far on just some of the background before I get into eligibility,
I'm going to check the chat, check the Zoom
I'm looking at, oh, it's because that computer can't check, but I'm looking, okay, all right, great. So I'm going to move into eligibility, so when you're ready, you would click on that link on that page. Let me just do it again to review the eligibility and then submit your interest
that said.
Um, the first step is actually just to submit your interest for to be considered for nomination. Um, actually the preset before that is to ensure that you are eligible. Hence why we're going to go through this and then go through the timeline as well. Just a quick view this page includes eligibility requirements, then a button to submit your venture for consideration. The selection of process timeline, we will go through all this and then frequently asked questions. This is also an iterative process, so some of your questions, if May, become frequently asked questions. And so we will take note and start to add them here as well.
I'm going to scroll all the way back up.
Okay. Start
you should I didn't even introduce myself. I realized, sorry, so I'm going to introduce Sephora. Is going to come up here and introduce herself. She's our technical representative. That is pretty much the point on their eligibility requirements. I realized I never introduced myself, because I just jumped straight into it. My name is Robin. I am the director of ecosystem engagement at UpSurge Baltimore, which Ted CO in the state of Maryland has designated as steward of the Pina Innovation Awards process, or selection process, and then the planner of the Maryland student adventure showcase. But I'm going to turn the mic over to Sephora here, and you can introduce yourself.
Hello, everyone. Sorry, there's so many screens you can find here or there and I can scroll. Okay. Thank you. I am the Aqua tech and ecosystem manager for TEDCO. One of the programs that I manage directly is the positive of hair innovation acceleration grant program. So that includes ensuring the requirements are laid as clear and apparent to applicants, and is in alignment with the statutes intent coordinating between UpSurge ourselves and the Office of Attorney General that is mandated to be included in the actual award management, closing, and then the actual award, getting you the check, getting you $50,000 in your hand, and all of the stewardship that's included in that. So it really is a partnership of as close to 5050 when it comes to making sure that students are successful and have all of the information that they need to be fully equipped. So this is fairly robust for any students here or on the call. If you feel overwhelmed, that is totally normal. This is a lot of information, a lot of text, and so know that this is what the information was for. And even if there are questions that we you ruminate on or think about after the fact. Feel free to directly email for follow up. So starting from the top,
a member will be bigger over there. I'm going to speak this
way. Yeah, a member, or members of the founding and current leadership team must be enrolled as students at in Baltimore, Towson, Columbia, MSA college or university at the time of award with an anticipated graduation date of December 25 or later. Very much a mouthful. So to be clear, a founding member is a member that would be recognized under operating agreement, someone that is a key partner in the leadership and the founding of the company, and has some sort of backdated documentation there. And to show that, and to be clear, whenever we reference Baltimore, towns of Columbia, I would say it's the 22 eligible universities that Roth mentioned, 20 not 22 Thank you, 20 eligible institutions that were previously mentioned. So if you are a graduating senior, there are a lot of stipulations that we've created to ensure that you are still eligible for this program. I'm going to start with those that are not graduating. So if you are not graduating, we expect that you have a minimum of free credit enrollment. There is no stipulation on what degree you're pursuing. You know, if you're part time or full time, but when we ask for your enrollment report at the time of award and also time of application, you should be three credits or more. Now let's say you are a graduating student this semester. Obviously you may be nearing completion and only have one, three or less, maybe even zero. That is why we've created the additional stipulation that if you are graduating at the end of, say, this semester, and can prove that in your enrollment report, we would be able to waive that requirement if you are graduating, let's say in the winter time. So maybe you are graduating January or February, or you are walking next year. What matters is that the student founder the graduation date does not exceed 180 days before award disbursement. So if you're graduating in December, that means that we have to deploy the money no later than April of next year, and there and after, if you were to graduate January, or you were closed on requirements, closed on completion degree, and time in between, that if you are graduating in the spring, I Should also mention for those that may be nearing completion and have like a one credit degree course, we can also waive that three credit requirement again, we meet in hand, and we'll later an actual verification letter to prove that you are graduating in that current semester. So I tried to create some eligibility stances to make it clear to folks. As an example, if you are a PhD student that might be graduating and you're taking one credit Capstone, you're still eligible. But if you're taking, say, an online certificate, and if it's your first semester and it's a two credit class that doesn't need the credit variable, there was a lot of what is written is as consulted between ourselves and the Office of Attorney General, and in alignment with state statute to ensure that this is for eligible students that are based here in Maryland pursuing degrees here in Maryland, but keep the barrier up entry low so We can be flexible with that standard definition, moving to number two at time of application and award, at least 50% or more of the company is owned by a student founder or group of student founders at an eligible institution. So what this means is that in your operating agreement, bylaws or any other cap table that you might have, there is divine proof that the company's ownership, the equity, how much is owned by each individual, comes out to at least 50 or more from one student or group. So let's say you might have a mixed group of students, alumni. We've seen that before, students, PhD, not excuse me, PhD as a faculty advisor, so long as it meets the 50% threshold at the time of award. And we also ask for that application too. So that would be late December, maybe early January, that meets that requirement. And number three is, what is the actual definition of technology based so in the actual statute, it requires that this award be available to technology based businesses. And so we really try to help you all understand what that includes. And I'll read it as follows, so we identify technology based as one that builds and commercializes proprietary technology it involves r MD, research and development, intellectual property protection or scientific advancement. There is an emphasis on scalable potential beyond the initial founding team's ability to deliver on the product or services key trade. And so here are some examples of actual companies that have been funded. One might be an E commerce sneaker platform with proprietary algorithm sources that deals across various online marketplaces. Another could be a novel, portable medical tool that effectively and accurately diagnoses cancer at twice the speed and half the cost of traditional equipment. What might not be eligible is a donut shop with an online shop or nail salon where customers can build a point of thumb that really would be something we consider traditional, that might have an element of technique. So regardless of your company status, if you're an LLC for profit nonprofit, we need to understand that there is something you are building here that is unique and in its own right, scalable. It's not just something that you are outsourcing from a third party vendor and adding on to a traditional business. Speaking of business incorporation, okay, hold that thought. Harish, the venture must be incorporated as a business. We do have some flexibility. So say that you are notified that you are an eligible applicant, and we'd like to meet you to the final round in late December, and you are received notice that you are approved for the award in January, you would have 30 days from that point forward to incorporate, so that still gives you plenty of time to go through the process identify what is the best formation strategy for you. You'd be working with surge and TEDCO to identify that and register in time to make sure that we can get you to close in a reasonable time frame. At this time, all entities are accepted, but I would reroute everybody back to number three on that technology based part, that's what matters most to us, more than anything. So principal place of business is defined as where you a place that you can conduct office business. So it can't just be like a shipping or mailing address or Dropbox address. It has to be somewhere like here, where you can meet people, you can conduct events and or coordinate with third party vendors. It can be your own home. It can be a dorm room. You've accepted that. The list goes on and on, and in this case by case. So I'm not going to go into all the stipulations, but it has to be a physical place where you conduct your principal business here in the Baltimore MSA, and we do ask for documentation of that. And number six, the applicant agrees to use at least 20% or more of the award to hire third party consultants for planning, development, regulatory compliance, or any other technical assistance related to establishing a startup company, unless upon applicants requests the tape, the TEDCO provides a waiver. So if you are interested in pursuing this 50,000 but you want to use all of that internal to the company itself, we can provide a waiver at the time of application where you can explain here's how I would like to use the money instead, and I can ensure and de risk any sort of concerns that you all might have about us fully having control of the funding for only our internal operations. Number seven, if selected, required documentation to receive funding includes the following. So the application form, you'll have that because you've applied. So there's not much really do there, and in the application form, there's going to be a lot of additional things, including a project proposal, where we'll ask you, how are you going to actually use the 50,000 what are the associated milestones and metrics? So how will you know you've succeeded at this particular objective, and what is the broader ecosystem? Right? We want to award this to students that want to build here and also see success here. And so what are some of the broader goals of this business and ways that this business thriving will have some secondary impact in the Baltimore innovation ecosystem,
a spending plan will be asked for those at the time of award. So if you receive award, we'll break down, you know, for the tranche disbursement, since we'll be doing 25,000 up front, and 25,006 months after, what will you be using the money in for the first 25 in the second 25 the budget, which should closely align with your spending plan and your proposal, as well proof. So the proof of the actual physical business headquarter, the articles of incorporation, or articles of organization, depending on information, bylaws and the op and or the operating agreement. The operating agreement may have a cap table. If not, we may ask for it, but we need a way to understand what is the equity percentage holding for the company credit enrollment report that'll be asked at the time of notice of award and the time of closing membership and or bylaw resolution or board resolution, excuse me, so that'll be granting whoever the eligible student is. If there are other members on the team, they'll have to sign off and say, Hey, we approve of this person signing on behalf. We give them the executive authority to sign on behalf for this award. And then a student verification letter from anybody at your university saying, Hey, this is an actual student here. So as you can tell, this is fairly robust. Again, take notes, but revisit this page. Often ask questions. Often. We really try to give you as much information front loaded now, so there are no surprises. After the fact, I'm gonna pause there because I feel like I've been talking forever and, you know, open up questions.
Or yes, we do have some questions in the chat, and we're gonna take some questions in the room. The one thing I would just frame this again, eligibility requirements is just to make sure that you are actually eligible for this award, so you're not going through all this trouble and then find out later you're not eligible. That's the most important part. I will say that not I will say that only the nominated ventures are the ones that will have to go through with all these documentations that Sephora just named. So I will take you through the book the interest form process, because that is an even lower barrier, just so that you can express your interest, so that your steering committee member knows of your interests and about your venture. And then ultimately, if you your steering committee member decides to nominate you, then you will have to do all the things that are listed in number seven. Does that make sense so far? Okay, but what questions we have right now before we walk into the open interest form and the rest of the process, just eligibility questions.
I have no skills. I'm a graduating senior this semester, but I plan on enrolling in grad and within the Baltimore area. So does that notify the April debt or the April deadline for next year?
No. So if I may ask, is this a part time program? Full time to be a full time MBA? Okay, so that's definitely a minimum of three credits. So what will likely happen say you apply, or you You asked to be nominated, you're approved, you move forward to the application. The application will be late fall. So you would, you would be asked for your enrollment report at that time, and then at the time of closing, because those are two different times at the time of closing, which would be in the spring, we asked for a fresh update, and so that would be your business enrollment report, but your eligibility is remains approved across and let's say things change for you. Let's say, Hey, I actually want to defer. I don't want to start this program. We use your graduated status from the fall to get you that money in the spring. Does that
make sense? Well, quick clarifying question, Are you currently enrolled at a Baltimore MSA college or university that you're graduating from?
Yes, not Morgan State. Oh, yeah, thank you. Yes.
Okay, great. I have a couple questions in the chat, first, from Harish. And what if the student plus alumni from the same university hold the old combined 50% are we still?
No, yeah, yep, unless the alum recently graduated. If the
in this we actually have a live case of dissatisfied Yeah, I'm using a blanket No. If the if this is someone who is graduating now, like they are planning to transition to alumni status in December of 25 then yes, but if they've already graduated at the time of us having this conversation, no, okay,
Harish, hopefully you hold heard that. Let us give us a thumbs up if you heard it.
Yes,
I got that. Thank you. Thank you. All right. And Maureen asks, Will you be sharing the Zoom recording so that we can share it with our students? Yes, absolutely. We will be circulating this out. Stephanie asked, When will the steering committee members have access to list of interested students at our institution so we can start working with them very soon, probably in the next week. Stephanie just wanted to get through the information sessions, because I think we see an uptick after information sessions. So I've heard from some student entrepreneurs that they've held off on submitting their interest form until after an information session. So I'll share that with you guys very soon, and that's a great segue. I'm going to share with you guys what the open interest form looks like so again, if I'm a student entrepreneur, I'm interested in expressing my interest so that my steering committee member knows about my venture and of my interest, you can submit your venture for consideration. Here, you can click on it, it will take you to an air table form. It really repeats the eligibility requirements, because, of course, we want to be sure that you have read through them
that said,
it will ask you for basic contact information, startup company, name, your school, affiliation. All the eligible schools are pre populated. So if you do not see your school there, that's probably because your school is not eligible, and we should talk. And then some of the thing, some of the company information is are optional, like website, URL, business, stage, industry and tech type, team size, and then what is this? Oh, and some demographic information that is all optional. With that being said, there are three types of materials you can submit just for the interest form. We want to keep this stage very, very low barrier. You can submit an executive summary and, or a pitch deck and, or a video pitch right? So you could do one of the three, two of the three, or all three, I would not quite recommend doing none that gives your steering committee member not very much to go up right, other than maybe your website. And so when you submit this, then your your venture will be added to a list that has been provided to your steering committee member so that they can take your venture into consideration when ultimately making a nomination of again, up to four ventures per per institution. That maximum is intentional, because we want to ensure, I guess, the spirit of the competition, yeah, competition is that it's the best of the best at each institution, right? There are also some institutions with dozens of student entrepreneurs, and there are some with fewer, and so we wanted to make sure there was a maximum for balancing. So that said again that it is really important that you get in touch with your steering committee member so that they are aware of your venture, either from this form or also just in person, so they get to know you. I will say some steering committee members have decided not to use the form at all, but that is up to them. But no matter what, they will see the entries of this form, but some of the entrepreneurship centers have really close ties to all the student ventures that are already on campus, and so they may decide to just work directly with them as well. But to come to your basis, I still recommend everyone submit this interest form. Any questions on the interest form, it'll fit into more context as I go through the selection process and timeline,
I'm checking the chat.
I have a question here from she. I am currently working on two distinct ventures. One is a community based online marketplace, and the other is entrepreneurship focused online news portal. Could you please confirm if I am eligible to apply with both ventures in the same cycle, or if the program allows only one application per individual slash team? We have not gotten that question before.
I don't want to give an absolute yes or no here, but the preference would be by student one application. So, and I want to clarify that, because sometimes students are multiple teams, yep. Ultimately, this is meant to award per university, one, maybe two awards. I think they're actually attack right? Yes. So we're thinking about probability here. If you submit or both, I find it highly unlikely in the interest cycle, find it highly unlikely both will be then pushed forward, nominated for that patient. So I would probably go with one that you feel is most fit for this, please consult with your steering committee member, because it's just on my video. I want to promote two out of the four that they can nominate for the application.
Yeah, I would, if this is okay, Sephora, I would say like you were probably able to submit both in terms of interest, but ultimately, you would need to talk with your steering committee member to decide which one might be best to move forward to the nomination phase.
Yeah. Well,
thank you. Appreciate
it. Good. Oh, okay,
so the selection process and timeline, so right now we are in the interest form phase. So that is number one. It opened August 19. In between August 19 and today, we've had this is our second information session. The deadline to submit the interest form is October 17. So we have another month here for a student ventures to submit the interest form, but also for steering committee members to get the word out so that more students know about the opportunity, and therefore submit their interest as well. From then between the 17th and the 14th, but honestly, sooner rather than later, the steering committee members will then decide on four ventures from their institution that they will like to submit for nomination, and from then, from in that month, they'll be able to work with those student ventures to prepare their materials for intake. Okay, so not once you're nominated, that means like a steering committee committee member comes to you and says, I would like to nominate your venture for this opportunity. They will work with you for four weeks instead of Andres is one to prepare your materials. So we touched on some of those materials in the eligibility requirements as listed above, and steering committee members, you guys will have the first look into the actual intake form that we are finalizing, so that you go out, you all will know exactly how to help your student ventures prepare for intake. That said, so November 14, it'll be before Thanksgiving, and also hopefully before final exams and like holiday breaks and all that, we'll have the nomination submitted at that time in December, we will be convening a review committee. This will be include, this will include industry experts from across sectors, likely in the Baltimore region, but I think we may have some from outside the region as well that will ultimately review the applications or the intake materials to help us narrow down To the recommendation of nine, 950, $1,000 award awardees. Again, our process will recommend nine to TEDCO, but ultimately TEDCO will be those, the ones that sign off on these are the awardees, because the selected ventures will then be notified in January of their selection, but quickly after that, you will have to meet with the TED code team for an eligibility review meeting. So we are not going to go out publicly with this list of nine until we verify that you are all eligible. Things happen, even if you know you review the eligibility requirements, than the steering committee member does, sometimes things happen, right? Do you want to add something
I was just going to say, and a lot of that will be fact checking. So if you said, for instance, I have a principal business location in Towson, it's like, okay, provide us the deed or mortgage statement or a lease, but I have none of those things. I lied. This is where that would come up. So it's the actual documentation collection, hopefully a lot of things we'll need to then bring forward to Office of Attorney General and preparing you for that next step. So yes, investigative work, if you will, but less scary,
yes and yes. And so the point of like letting you all know what might be required of you if you're selected is that you can start to think about these materials and start to acquire some of these materials even before you're awarded. Or if you feel like you have a really confident shot, then of course you should be gathering these right. And so again, steering committee members will be your partners in this. And of course, Sephora can be here to ask answer questions about appropriate documentation, acceptable forms and so forth. Bad question. Chat. Oh, are we back down to nine winners? I thought we had 10 awards for this.
So this is a good question. Stephanie, the intent was nine per year. If there is fall off, we'll see, but it depends on the quality of the actual application. So if we only have nine quality applications that are eligible, we don't have to arbitrarily select the additional 10. If we have 10 star studded that is definitely a conversation.
I think we were, oh, I think we had let the steering committee members know about the drop off. Yes, yeah. Can I share the context?
I mean,
just if there's ever a situation where in the cycle, student venture is identified as no longer eligible. That money is then soon Sue back to the fund, and then the following year, if there are eligible students that exceed the nine, and we do have that funding, we can but five, by documentation is supposed to be nine awarded every year. So that's why we're trying to keep our language standard and not necessarily say, Okay, this year is 10, no, actually, this year is 11. No, this year is 13. So that's that's it. So I can say at this time so a
minimum of nine will be awarded.
All right, okay, so again, where we left off was that those that are notified of their selection will meet for a eligibility requirement review as soon as they're notified, like probably within the week in early January. And hopefully that process goes quickly and we're able to verify everyone's eligibility and therefore acceptance of the award, because likely we'll we'll put out a press release once that's all done, and then everyone will start to prepare for the student venture showcase. That'll be February of 2026 we don't have a date yet. It is contingent on venue and high profile speakers and so, but we have determined with our steering committee that mid, mid to late February is ideal to avoid spring breaks, exams, beginning of the semester, all that is like the only time Ever. So any questions about selection process and timeline, do
no questions. Okay, great. I'm not going to go through all of them, but I'm going to skim through some of the frequently asked questions.
Oh. Question in regards to the interest submission, do you recommend ventures wait to submit until they have the best submission, or as early as possible, with iteration, both,
but also not necessarily your best, because you will have time to improve and polish your materials for intake again. This is like we want to lower the barrier so that that you're not stressing over this first interest form. Again, it is just so that you can get in contact with your steering committee member and they're aware of your signature, and can can work with you, and therefore, hopefully nominate you. And so it doesn't have to be your fully polished, but if you have time and you would like to find some, if you'd like to polish it a little bit, that's great, too. Yeah. And today, since it's a smaller group in person, if you guys want to be connected or to your CRM committee committee member, I recommend you do that today. Just email them and let them know. And before you, even if you want to do it, before you submit the interest form. You know, I highly recommend that
you mentioned use the language star study ventures. Could you kind of elaborate on what that looks like in this particular instance of competition?
Yes, it is actually on the interest form, the selection criteria, yes. So the selection criteria is not hard and fast, and it's not hard and fast, but it is a guidance that we provided our steering committee members to consider, when they consider who they want to nominate. Again, it's by institution. So again, you're you're in your case of Morgan, you're going up against other Morgan ventures, right? But they're looking for startup viability, business structure, growth and scale potential be impact to the community and or to the Baltimore region. Innovation impact to the industry or sector, and level of creativity, slash disruption and project viability, project related business activities, budget milestones and metrics
and how that applies, like the next phases, though past the committee.
So the selection of the nominated ventures will be a version of this, but much more detailed. There will be a rubric. There will be guidance for all the reviewers. If you guys want me to share that I can. It's just, it's a lot of information,
but, yeah, great question. Any other questions?
All right, like I said, I'm just going to skim through some of the frequently asked questions. You're welcome to. I encourage you to skim through these. I think we did touch on most of these things already. Graduate students and students of all types are eligible. We've been asked like, do med students count? Yes, we've had awardee BMed student, PhD students, graduate students, all of the above.
I think one to highlight is intellectual property. So just for those, especially those that might be working out of the tech transfer office or a research based startup out of a lab or PhD student, you should definitely be conferring with your faculty advisor to understand what the company formation strategy will look like. But ultimately, what we care about is that 50% or more equity. So if a university holds equity in your company, so long as it doesn't surpass 50% of what this basically surpassed what the student, the eligible students own. You are still eligible. We've had and awarded those that had University intellectual property in here. So okay,
I'll note this, if your institution does not have a steering committee representative. There are some or you are not able to reach your student representative or your steering committee representative, reach out to me. My email is listed on this web page,
and I will, we will work together.
So people have always asked like, will I receive feedback about from evaluators, about my venture, the answer is, yes, we always give them that option. I can't make promises, but a lot of evaluators have been really generous with their feedback, and in turn, we share that feedback with you. So hopefully, even if you're not selected for award, but you're nominated, this hopefully is a fruitful process for you as well. I also mentioned this at the top. I'll mention this again. If you're one of the nominated ventures, but not selected for award, we have the intention to create space, to create space for nominated ventures to be included at the Maryland student adventure showcase. So even if you're not selected for award, still, please plan to attend. We like LA, like we did last year, we were able to create that, you know, exhibition, showcase, opportunity for nominated but not select adventures to table, and then made a couple of smaller dollar amount, but community, Audience Choice Awards available. So all that to say, stick around. There are opportunities for you to engage, even if you're not selected for award. What happens after the award, if you are awarded? I'm not going to go through all the bullet points, but essentially, UpSurge and TECHO are committed to serving you as an entrepreneur, so we're going to be trying to plug you into a lot of tech those resources or ecosystem resources, and there will be some required reporting, which will entail three years of qualitative information. So it's like telling us what's been going on with your company. It's also, candidly, really helpful for storytelling, so that we can understand the impact of these awards. And then for five years, three plus two, so five years total would be quantitative reporting, so kind of reporting, some of your company numbers and things like that. So those would be some of the requirements. And of course, some of the requests would be that you do something like what Andres did today, which is like, come in and kind of share about your experience to the next generation of potential awardees. All right, I have come to the end of this page, we've gone through it with a fine tooth comb. Like to open the floor for any final questions. You can also stick around and chat off recording
question.
I saw a note on nonprofits. Can you expand more about what's permissible in terms of not profit ventures?
So there is nothing in the statute that exclusively states nonprofits are not eligible. What we're leaning on heavily here is the scope around the technology based project activity. So like we talked a lot about open AI as our example, there may be instances. And also,
I thought they started us, oh, I didn't know that.
You know, a lot of biotech med tech, health tech, digital tech companies may start off with a nonprofit focus. Maybe that will change in the future. We don't know. But if the company itself is developing something novel and proprietary, and prove that they should be up for consideration.
How should they be incorporated?
So just to clarify, nonprofits, ventures incorporated as a nonprofit, are eligible, but only if they also adhere to the technology based requirement.
Are you asking, like, should they be a, 501, c3, faculty, or B core, all of those are all of those as it currently stands, are eligible. All business types are eligible. We are focused on that technology based definition as stringent,
interesting. Okay, there's
nothing in statute. It refers to businesses and startup company quite frequently, but the anchor was the technology based definition. So we decided to leave room open for those that may not be a five ones, C core or else even more traditional types to see if there are maybe some excellent opportunities that are formatted
as other class. Good to know. Thank you. Yeah, sure.
Any questions in the Zoom Room, I'm checking our chat.
Oh, yeah, so I wanted to ask a question about the technology basis. Is there a line between a company that has the intentions to explore that area versus one that is immediately entry and market with that, like an MD, I'm saying like MVP, versus immediately coming? So are
you asking one that may already exist as a non tech based business, but is experimenting with a tech based product and wants to use the money for that versus one that is starting out as a tech based
business. Yes, or like, suppose you're doing some type of formulation that's driven in technology or advancement, but your initial entry and market, for purposes of my entry, is basic.
So we care about project like the project itself has to be focused on accelerating a technology based business and its activity if, I guess I have a few examples in mind, I would say for now it's a case by case base. If the company has existing predated activities that are not tech based, that is still permissible, so long as in their project, they clearly delineate, and that's why we ask all that information. This 50,000 is exclusively devoted to that. And it would be a plus for you to explain how this evolution plays an overall impact in the business, its revenue model and its impact and larger impact in the, you know, innovation economy. Does that help or is that seem too big?
Sure, and we'll stick around if you want to keep chatting, especially those in the room, I'll just do one more last call. It doesn't look like we have any further questions on Zoom. So thank you all for joining. Thank you to all the steering committee members who joined as well. We will be sending out the reporting and also just the eligibility requirements again, to all steering committee members and also interested student entrepreneurs and broadly in social media and so forth. So please look out for that and help us spread the
word. Thank you. Thanks all. Okay, awesome. Thank you all for coming in person. Please grab extra food if you'd like.
