Our vision for "Desafio 2009" - Part 2

[Gian Carlo M.]

On my previous blog post I wrote about some of the aspects of the two competitions GVcepe will organize in 2009: "Desafio Brasil" and "Desafio América Latina".

What may be the biggest novelty in 2009 has already been talked about, the first "Desafio América Latina", to be held in São Paulo - Brazil in September 2009.

But we have other interesting innovations for "Desafio" in 2009!

Inspired by TechCrunch50, we decided it would be interesting to let the Latin American competitors show their work, their ideas, their prototypes, to the public in a fair-like event. In the demo-pit, teams will have the opportunity to explain their projects to a larger crowd than it would be possible in a typical 20-minute presentation. They will also have a greater contact with the judges, potential investors and partners; a great opportunity to generate business.

One consequence of the demo-pit is that naturally projects with a working prototype will have a head start. Projects that are still in the business-plan phase will be more than welcome, but we do want to incentivize entrepreneurs who have been able to build something with little or no capital. It certainly enforces the entrepreneurs pitch, when speaking with potential investors, when he has something more concrete to show off.

This is a new positioning of the competition that is very important. We don't believe that "Desafio" should be known simply as a business-plan competition, but as a new-businesses competition! We would love to see the next big technology based company start it's story in our competitions. And that will only happen if we focus on the entrepreneurs and the potential of their projects and not only on their business-plan writing skills.

Besides the demo-pit, the typical 20-minute presentations and Q&A with judges will still occur. The final score of the teams will take into consideration their presentations to the judges, their performance in the demo-pit and the public's opinion.

Another innovation of "Desafio 2009" is this website. We thought that since more than 500 people have participated in "Desafio GV-INTEL" since 2006, it would be interesting to reunite them all - and also new entrepreneurs and investors interested in the competitions or simply in entrepreneurship and innovation. We felt that a networking tool for entrepreneurs, innovators and investors was something that was lacking for Latin America, so we decided to build it ourselves!

The website is also a knowledge tool aligned with the competitions purpose of educating entrepreneurs. The finalists of "Desafio Brasil" go through a one-month period where they have the opportunity to enhance their business-plans with the help of other experienced entrepreneurs, investors, strategy consultants and professors. We will transfer the knowledge generated during this one-month period (such as keynote presentations, videos, reading recommendations, etc.) to the website so it can be used by anyone in Latin America.

In a nutshell "Desafio" is a new-business generating engine. We want to educate young entrepreneurs and give them the tools and opportunities to make their technology based businesses take-off.

[Gian Carlo M.]

Hi Jonathan, I didn't understand your question... Final price?
No, you can only participate in the competition from your country.

[Johnatan Hernandez]

What is the final price for Desafio? Can one participate in more than one desafio event(country)??