Rubber Band Competition Stretches Students' Entrepreneurial Skills

Results of Stanford's Global Innovation Tournament Demonstrate
That Value Can Be Created from Anything or Nothing at All
STANFORD, Calif.--(Business Wire)--
When the university kicked off its 2nd annual Entrepreneurship
Week on Friday, Feb. 22, Stanford also launched the global Innovation
Tournament, a fast and furious competition to see who could create the
most value from rubber bands in only five days. Students were told on
Friday afternoon that they had until Thursday morning to conceive and
deliver their value and submit a short video online to present their
results. They could form a team of any size, use as many rubber bands
as they wanted and define value in any way they chose. Approximately
300 student teams from universities around the globe participated.

The results were remarkable: a new, more effective and inexpensive
mosquito net design for impoverished areas battling malaria; the "Do
Bands" campaign to inspire people to get things done, which raised
over $500 for charity and spawned a new social network online;
hilarious, late-night infomercial spoofs touting new products such as
"Shoe Bands" and "The Habit Breaker;" a model used to teach aspects of
Einstein's theory of relativity; a new painting technique; a community
art project; and so much more. Winning submissions can be viewed at
http://eweek.stanford.edu

All entries were viewed and judged by a panel of prestigious
Silicon Valley leaders that included inventors, venture capitalists,
journalists and executives. They awarded an array of unique,
experiential prizes that included dinners and meetings with top
executives at Silicon Valley companies; yachting on the San Francisco
Bay; the opportunity to see Al Gore speak in person; box seats to a
professional hockey game; a handmade guitar worth more than $2,000;
and other special awards.

According to Tina Seelig, executive director of the Stanford
Technology Ventures Program and the director of the Stanford
Entrepreneurship Network, "If a bunch of students can generate this
much impact in their spare time in only five days with basically no
resources, there is no limit to the problems they can solve if they
put their minds to it. Entrepreneurship is essentially about
identifying opportunities, leveraging limited resources and creating
value - and these students proved it."

Entrepreneurship is of enormous interest on campus, because the
Stanford community recognizes that the 21st century will belong to
innovators who can turn ideas into action. Stanford believes that
entrepreneurship can, indeed, be taught and that the learning process
should be experiential. The Innovation Tournament was created to give
students an entrepreneurship immersion experience by allowing them to
simulate the value creation process of a start-up in a condensed time
frame.

It was all part of Entrepreneurship Week hosted by the Stanford
Entrepreneurship Network, a federation of organizations across campus.
The week's events included presentations by prestigious speakers;
roundtable discussions; mixers; Venture Capital/student "speed dating"
allowing students to pitch their ideas; and a start-up job fair. The
high-energy documentary film, Imagine It!, also made its world
premiere; it captures the dreams and excitement of last year's
Innovation Tournament featuring Post-It Notes(R) as the challenge
object and stars student teams from Stanford and around the world. It
can be viewed or downloaded from http://www.imagineitproject.com.

In November, 2008, Stanford will host a new version of the
Innovation Tournament as part of Global Entrepreneurship Week, and all
schools around the world are invited to participate. To learn more and
sign up for updates, visit http://eweek.stanford.edu.

About the Stanford Entrepreneurship Network

Serving as a single point of contact for entrepreneurship at
Stanford University, the Stanford Entrepreneurship Network (SEN) is a
federation of nearly 20 entrepreneurship-related organizations across
campus that conduct research, teach and/or provide outreach services.
Most of the member organizations serve not just Stanford students, the
Stanford community and Silicon Valley, but also other students and
members of the entrepreneurial ecosystem worldwide. SEN also serves as
a forum for communication and collaboration among its member
organizations.

Stanford School of Engineering
David Orenstein, 650-736-2245
Communications and PR Manager
davidjo@stanford.edu
or
Stanford Technology Ventures Program
Tina Seelig, 650-725-1627
Executive Director
tseelig@stanford.edu

Copyright Business Wire 2008