Pitch It GBC!

1. Entries can be single applicants or multiple founder partnerships.
2. The main applicant must be a current student at George Brown College or recent alumni (who graduated between August 2022 and October 2023).
3. Open to domestic and international students, but the intention must be to establish a business/social enterprise in Ontario, Canada.
4. Applicants must use an active George Brown College email account to submit an application and receive competition communications and be able to receive funds if successful.
5. All applicants must be available to present a live online 5-minute pitch live at the PITCH IT GBC! final competition on Friday, November 17, 2023, in order to be eligible to receive funding.
6. The applicant/Team can be at the concept stage and does not need to be operating or registered at the time of entry.
7. To enter Social Innovation Stream 2, your proposed offering must meet the following social innovation definition: – Social Innovations are new social practices that aim to meet social needs in a better way than the existing solutions. These can include improving working conditions, education, community development, or health, with the ultimate goal of strengthening civil society. Social innovation includes the social processes of innovation, such as open-source methods and techniques, and innovations with a social purpose – like activism, virtual volunteering, microcredit, or distance learning.  Social Innovation entities can be revenue-generating but do not intend to distribute profit dividends.

1. Finalists are not guaranteed funding.
2. Applicants will learn the identity of the final competition selection panel on Friday, November 17, 2023.
3. Applicants will retain ownership of all intellectual property contained in their submissions.
4. Applicants are encouraged to attend a Business Model Canvas workshop provided by startGBC before making an entry.
5. Applicants are encouraged to use the Open-3-Close Pitch method as found on the www.georgebrown.ca/startGBC website and attend a workshop to gain experience.

By submitting an application to the PITCH IT GBC! competition, applicants consent and agree to abide by the following rules and regulations:

1. George Brown College is not responsible for any lost, late, illegible, incomplete, falsified, destroyed, or failed entries, or for any electronic miscommunications or failures of any kind, which may limit a person’s ability to participate in the competition.
2. Each participant may only submit one business idea.
3. Deliberate or negligent misappropriation of the intellectual property of another person is an ethical breach that will be grounds for disqualification from the competition.
4. In the event that startGBC is prevented from continuing with the contest by an event beyond its control, startGBC or George Brown College has the right to modify, suspend, extend, or terminate the competition.
5. startGBC and George Brown College reserve the right to use competition submissions, as well as photographs or videos taken of competition applicants, as a group or individually, over the course of the competition, for educational and promotional purposes in perpetuity.
6. In the event of a dispute regarding who submitted an entry, the entry will be deemed to have been submitted by the authorized account holder of the email address used to submit the entry at the time of entry. “Authorized account holder” is defined as the natural person who is assigned to an email address by an Internet service provider, online service provider, or other organization responsible for assigning email addresses for the domain associated with the submitted email address.
7. By participating in the PITCH IT GBC! competition, entrants agree to be bound by these official rules and the decisions of startGBC and the judges, which are final and binding in all respects. Failure to comply with the Official Rules will result in disqualification.
8. All rules and regulations proposed within are subject to change, at the sole discretion of startGBC, at any time, without previous warning or notification to contest applicants.
9. All prize fund winners will be required to remain engaged with startGBC until April 2024 and provide updates to the startGBC Manager on the progress of the business creation.
10. All applicants will be required to complete the annual startGBC entrepreneurship survey until April 2024.
11. All applicants will be required to complete a competition exit survey which will require applicants to reflect on the process and personal development in line with the George Brown College Human Skills Framework.
12. The final competition will be recorded by startGBC/George Brown College and will be made available for viewing by startGBC/George Brown College. All applicants will be required to sign a video/media release form.
13. Prize winners must provide startGBC with a budget forecast on how the prize funds will be spent by 5:00 p.m., Monday, November 20, 2023.
14. If details provided by applicants are no longer active on November 17, 2023, funds will become void.
15. George Brown College and startGBC respect your right to privacy. Personal information collected from applicants will only be used by George Brown College/startGBC to administer the competition and, only if consent is given at the time of entry, to provide applicants with information regarding upcoming workshops, events and competitions. For more information regarding the manner of collection, use, and disclosure of personal information by George Brown College, please refer to the George Brown College Privacy Policy.