CCC plans SUNY-wide business competition

AUBURN — Cayuga Community College (CCC) won a $5,000 grant to launch a business competition and a mentoring program for students at the state’s community colleges.

The grant, from the Coleman Foundation, will help fund the Business Idea Competition and an entrepreneurship mentoring program this year for students at any of the 30 State University of New York (SUNY) community colleges. The grant was one of six awarded earlier this month by the Coleman Foundation at the 10th annual conference of the National Association for Community College Entrepreneurship.

The competition is open to any SUNY community college student enrolled in a credit or credit-free course. CCC will award more than $2,700 in prizes to winning ideas.

Students will have access to mentoring both before and after the competition, according to CCC. Winning teams will be encouraged to prepare formal presentations and submit their concepts to other competitions.

CCC will host workshops this fall for anyone interested in learning about the competition and the process of starting a business. Details will follow in the coming weeks, according to the college.

CCC has run business idea competitions for the past two years and received about 30 entries from four SUNY colleges in 2011. The school awarded more than $1,700 to three winning ideas last year.

“This project builds on Cayuga’s national reputation in supporting entrepreneurship on campus and in the community,” Tom Paczkowski, Fred L. Emerson Endowed Chair in Enterprise and Innovation at CCC, said in a news release. “The competition will encourage budding entrepreneurs to more formally think through and present their business idea. The winners will benefit from expert advice and an opportunity for access to seed money as well.”

For more information, contact Amy Valente at amy.valente@cayuga-cc.edu or (315) 255-1792, ext. 2419.

Contact Tampone at ktampone@cnybj.com