"The New Venture Competition provides a rigorous platform through which students develop their business ideas as a positive force for change."
So says Elise Bates, new director of Harvard Business School's New Venture Competition, which handed out $225,000 in cash and in-kind prizes last night to 12 student startups.
The winners were in the Student Business Track, with the runners-up taking home $25,000; the Student Social Enterprise Track runners-up were awarded $5,000; and the Tough Technology winners took home $15,000, reports the Harvard Gazette.
The teams pitched ideas in a range of fields, from health to artificial intelligence to cosmetics, per a press release.
More than 6,300 students and alumni have taken part in the competition since its inception in 1997, and $3 million has been awarded to students and alumni who've created social impact ventures, per the press release.
This year, 262 teams took part in the Student Business Track, 31 in the Social Enterprise Track, and 143 in the Alumni Track, in fields as varied as healthcare, sustainability, artificial intelligence, lifestyle and cosmetics, and nutrition.
"This year's entrants are powerful examples of business as a positive force for social change," says the director of the Social Enterprise Initiative.
"The NVC offers our students a unique educational platform to
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When Hannah Davis traveled to China to teach English, she noticed how Chinese workers and farmers were often sporting olive green army-style shoes. Those shoes served as her inspiration to create her own social enterprise, Bangs Shoes.