Competitions
Kellogg-Led Competitions
Competitions allow students to use their talents to explore solutions to complex challenges facing society.
Kellogg and Morgan Stanley Sustainable Investing Challenge
Host Organization: Kellogg & Morgan Stanley
This challenge, founded by Kellogg in 2011, harnesses the power of capital markets and student creativity to create positive social and environmental impact in the world. Finalists travel to a financial capital to present their proposals to a panel of experienced investors and officers.
VentureCat - Social Impact Track
Host Organization: Northwestern University
Open to NU students across all schools, this business pitch competition seeks to provide capital and mentorship to the best student startups. It offers six tracks: Business Products and Services, Consumer Products and Services, Green Energy and Sustainability, Life Sciences and Medical Innovations, Social Enterprises and Nonprofit, and Transportation and Mobility.
Kellogg Biotech & Healthcare Competition
Host Organization: Kellogg
This annual competition, founded in 2003, brings together top students from around the world to address a case focused on a biotech and/or healthcare issue.
Impact Investing and Sustainable Finance Competitions
Total Impact Portfolio Challenge
Host Organization: Wharton School of Business & Total Impact Capital
Business school students with an interest in pursuing a career in impact investing have the opportunity to design and execute a portfolio that uses capital to solve social issues.
MIINT
Host Organization: MIINT (MBA Impact Investing Network and Training)
This venture lab gives students practical, hands-on experience as an early-stage impact investor. Throughout the program, students will create an investment thesis, source and conduct diligence on early stage impact investing opportunities, prepare an investment memo, and present on a selected early stage company, with one company being selected for a $50,000 investment. Students apply individually and are selected to be part of a 3-5 person team with an assigned advisor.
A4S International Case Competition
Host Organization: University of Toronto, Rotman School of Management
Students work in teams to propose market-driven financial products, solutions, or mechanisms that produce financial returns and deliver on environmentally sustainable goals.
Social Impact Case Competitions
Map The System
Host Organization: University of Oxford
Map the System is a chance for students and recent graduates to learn more about the issues they care about, and to present their findings to a broad audience. Tackling global challenges with credibility starts with understanding a problem and its wider context – rather than jumping straight into a business plan or an idea for a quick fix. Participants in the Map the System are asked to demonstrate a deep understanding of a pressing social or environmental issue by mapping out the landscape of the current solutions and identifying missing opportunities for positive change.
Patagonia Case Competition
Host Organization: UC Berkeley Haas School of Business & Patagonia
Business students across the United States compete in teams to propose viable business solutions to a sustainability issue that outdoor retailer Patagonia is facing. The case changes annually.
Creative Shock
Host Organization: Creative Shock
The Creative Shock Case Competition allows students all over the world the opportunity to solve cases for socially responsible industries.
Net Impact Case Competition at CU Boulder
Host Organization: Leeds School of Business, University of Colorado, Boulder
This competition allows graduate students the opportunity to solve real world business issues with solutions that lead to positive social, environmental, and financial impacts.
CORPORATE RESPONSIBILITY CHALLENGE
Host Organization: HEC Montreal
Teams of MBAs from around the world gather in Montreal to find financially-viable solutions for businesses to contribute to the betterment of social causes.
Social Innovation and Social Venture Competitions
New Venture Championship
Host Organization: University of Oregon, Lundquist College of Business
New Venture Championship (NVC) is presented annually by the University of Oregon’s Lundquist College of Business. It is the original six-round business competition for graduate students. NVC has evolved into the premiere international entrepreneurial investment competition since it was founded in 1992.
HULT
Host Organization: Hult Prize Foundation
The Hult Prize Foundation is a not-for-profit organization dedicated to launching the world's next wave of social entrepreneurs. It encourages the world's brightest business minds to compete in teams to solve the planet's biggest challenges with innovative ideas for sustainable start-up enterprises. Annual Hult Prize winners can make their ideas reality with the help of USD1 million in seed funding.
Clean Energy Prize
Host Organization: MIT
Clean Energy Prize at MIT is the longest running environmentally-focused startup competition for university students. Teams of students propose business ventures that align with one of four sustainability tracks (Generate, Deliver, Demand, Move), and receive mentoring from industry leaders in fine-tuning their business proposal.
Cisco Global Problem Solver
Host Organization: Cisco
The Cisco Global Problem Solver Challenge allows teams to propose early-stage and innovative technology solutions to social and environmental problems.
Industry-Specific Competitions
Energy in Emerging Markets Case Competition
Host Organization: Duke Fuqua School of Business
This competition challenges students, academics, and industry professionals to find innovative and business-based solutions to energy issues facing the developing world.
Challenges in Energy
Host Organization: UCLA Anderson School of Management
Teams of MBA students from across the country work to propose solutions to a current or emerging energy issue in a case studies competition.
CleanTech Challenge
Host Organization: London Business School, University College London
The CleanTech Challenge asks students from around the world to propose innovative ideas that will lead to positive environmental impacts.
Recent News
Since winning the 2014 Kellogg-Morgan Stanley Sustainable Investing Challenge, Fresh Coast Capital is turning polluted brownfields into profitable farms.