Elon students invited to enter “Biscuitville Bowl”

Students are eligible to enter the April contest among Greensboro colleges and universities with the winning team awarded $5,000 for its school.

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Action Greensboro is collaborating with Opportunity Greensboro, synerG, and Biscuitville to host The Greensboro Collegiate Biscuitville Bowl, a week-long spring celebration of Greensboro, N.C.’s thriving entrepreneurial community, and its seven colleges and universities.

The objectives of the Biscuitville Bowl are to:

1.) Bring together Greensboro’s seven colleges and universities

2.) Connect the local business community and synerG young professionals with college students

3.) Facilitate a culture of knowledge, innovation and creativity for our local college community, knowing that entrepreneurship and small business startups will be a key component in economic development over the next few years

4.) Highlight Biscuitville, a successful home grown and educated entrepreneur

5.) Attract local and national media attention to further communicate the message that opportunity thrives in Greensboro

6.) Create community pride

The Biscuitville Bowl will be held April 16-21, 2012 and includes three components:

1.) Scratch-Made Success Week – For the week beginning April 16, the entrepreneurial leaders at each of the seven colleges and universities will host intercampus event or programs. The events focus on entrepreneurship and encourage participation from across all of Greensboro area campuses. Events will be free and open to all Greensboro college students.

2.) Brand Your Biscuit! Product Development Challenge – Biscuitville has challenged Greensboro-area college students to create a new product that will attract users ages 18-35 to Biscuitville restaurants. The winner of the Biscuitville Product Development Challenge will be announced at the Biscuits & Business Breakfast on Friday, April 20, 2012 from 8:30 to 10:00am at the Joint Center for Nanotechnology and Nanoengineering.

The winning team will:

1.) Receive $5,000 gift for their higher education institution. Team members will choose the allocation of the funds within their school with the assistance of the school development representative.

2.) Have a private breakfast with Burney Jennings, president of Biscuitville

3.) Have their winning product sold at area Biscuitville restaurants for a period of time.

A request for proposals in currently online at www.biscuitvillebowl.com. Each college or university will encourage students in all disciplines to participate.

3.) Campus Scramble – On Saturday, April 21, 2012, students from all seven Greensboro higher education institutions will take over Downtown Greensboro in the 7 Campus Scramble. Competing for a Golden Rolling Pin, runners sprint through downtown and scramble through four off-the-wall biscuit-themed obstacles. The course will be set up in Center City Park with a race route through Downtown Greensboro’s Cultural District. Obstacles will be placed throughout the race route in Center City Park and competitors will slide, crawl, jump and sprint through breakfast ingredients. Competitors can compete relay style in a team of four or compete individually. All proceeds from the 7 Campus Scramble and leftover biscuits will be donated to the Greensboro Urban Ministry.

Background:

The Biscuitville Bowl website, www.biscuitvillebowl.com, is the hub of information for participants and the community. Visitors to the website can register for the 7 Campus Scramble race, submit their proposals for the product development contest, view the schedule of free campus events for Scratch Made Success Week, and connect with social media. Currently, the site features an interview with Biscuitville CEO Burney Jennings; more corporate and college interviews will be added as the weeks progress.

The Biscuitville Bowl sponsors (to date) are Biscuitville, Opportunity Greensboro, VF Corporation, Mad Monk Interactive, Syngenta, Volvo Financial Services, Taylor’s Discount Tires, and the Center for Creative Leadership.

In 2011 Opportunity Greensboro, a team of the city’s academic and business leaders, recognized the need to connect students from all seven higher education institutions. They asked synerG Young Professionals to come up with a high-energy event geared to college students. synerG proposed a spring 5K relay race in downtown Greensboro. Then, when Biscuitville expressed an interest in event sponsorship, the theme of entrepeneurship emerged. The leadership of Action Greensboro and Opportunity Greensboro has embraced the entrepreneurship theme because it furthers their own objective of leveraging the strengths of our higher education institutions in collaboration with the business community to create innovative, new companies and attract established companies.