BELLINGHAM, WA — (Marketwired) — 10/22/15 — New photonics entrepreneurs have through 20 November to enter the , an opportunity to pitch their light-based technology products to a team of business development experts and venture capitalists. The annual competition is held during at the Moscone Center in San Francisco, running 15-17 February and hosted by .
Cash prizes, including $10,000 for the first prize, $5,000 for second prize, and $2,500 for third are funded by Founding Partner Jenoptik. Additional support for the training program and the competition comes from Lead Sponsor the National Science Foundation (NSF), and Supporting Sponsors Edmund Optics, Trumpf, and Open Photonics. Edmund Optics also will award the first-place winner $5,000 in products.
Finalists also receive opportunity for training with NSF I-Corps instructors, registration and travel reimbursement for training, and additional prizes and support. Throughout the competition, applicants receive feedback on their business models from photonics industry leaders.
The SPIE Startup Challenge is held annually at Photonics West, where new entrepreneurs pitch their light-based technology business plans to corporate development experts and venture capitalists.
Eligible applicants must present an optics or photonics technology or application as the basis for a viable new business. Established companies must be pre-revenue at the time of the competition and may not have sold any products.
Written applications will be evaluated by a team of expert judges, who will select 20 semifinalists to deliver live pitches on Tuesday 16 February.
Judges will select the top six pitches from the semifinal round. The final round is open to the public and will take place Wednesday 17 February, when judges decide and announce the top three pitches.
“The SPIE Startup Challenge has been a great competition largely because it is a great time to get feedback,” said 2014 winner Robert McLaughlin of the University of Western Australia. “The judges have been there, they have done that.”
Winning projects in included a blood-vessel-detecting technology for surgeons, a membrane-free optical microphone that detects sound with no moving parts and a plasmonic film that replaces a lab-bench worth of equipment with a robust, portable chemical detector.
More information on the Startup Challenge is at .
SPIE is the international society for optics and photonics, an educational not-for-profit organization founded in 1955 to advance light-based science and technology. The Society serves nearly 264,000 constituents from approximately 166 countries, offering conferences and their published proceedings, continuing education, books, journals, and the SPIE Digital Library in support of interdisciplinary information exchange, professional networking, and patent precedent. In 2015, SPIE has provided more than $5.2 million in support of education and outreach programs. SPIE is a Founding Partner of the International Year of Light and Light-based Technologies and a Founding Sponsor of the U.S. National Photonics Initiative.
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Amy Nelson
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