In about a week 4 students, each from 5 of the top HBCUs in the nation (Florida A&M University, Fort Valley State University, Bethune-Cookman University, Morgan State University, and Hampton University) will battle it out to see who can devise the best solution to real-live business issues.
On Saturday, May 7, at the 2016 Black Enterprise Entrepreneurs Summit, 5 teams of students representing each school will work to solve issues, pertaining to marketing or that are scientific in orientation, with the BE SMART Case Competition hosted by the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation.
The problems these students will solve are solicited from real issues faced by highly successfully black-owned businesses that are featured as Black Enterprises BE100s. Each team will have an opportunity to present its solutions to a panel of judges at the Summit. This will be a blind competition. What this means is that the winning school will not be announced until after the winners are announced; this way there will be no judge’s favoritism in selecting the deserving HBCU.
This isn’t the first time HBCUs have gone into battle with Black Enterprise. At the 2015 Black Enterprise Tech ConneXt Summit, four young men from Morgan State University won BE’s first hackathon where students were tasked with turning API’s into a useful financial apps for budgeting, saving, or making purchases on a mobile device. Morgan State took home the championship due to their app, “Oculus,†a predictive-thinking app designed to help college students avoid debt.
The battle for the baddest HBCU continues next month.
The BE SMART Case Competition will be facilitated by serial entrepreneur, Founder & CEO of Feverish Ice Cream-Ice Pops, and Co-Founder of Code Fever & Miami Black Tech Week, Felecia Hatcher. Hatcher has extensive experience with solving real-live business issues as she has successful sustained and capitalized on various businesses to date.
Register now for the 2016 BE Entrepreneurs Summit, May 4-7, Loews Hotel Miami, Miami, Florida, to witness this epic showdown.
Be sure to follow Black Enterprise on social media @BlackEnterprise for Entrepreneur Summit news, highlights, and updates. Use hashtag #BESummit to stay in the loop. Please be on the lookout at BlackEnterprise.com as speakers, activities, and sessions are announced.