Student Startup Madness tournament launches new campus-vs-campus competition with SEARCH@ to highlight university entrepreneurship

 

RELEASE Thursday, February 5, 2015 — The StartupMad Campus Challenge allows colleges and universities to compete against each other for prizes, money and bragging rights to show who is the most active entrepreneurship campus.

While student startups prepare for the 2014-15 Student Startup Madness (SSM) finals, a new SSM competition will allow all regional host universities— – past and present—to spotlight entrepreneurial activity on their campuses and in their regions.

The StartupMad Campus Challenge begins today, made possible by sponsorship, technology and a generous monetary prize from SEARCH@—a fun, new app (available on iPhone) for one-handed nearby discovery and user-created content. SEARCH@ is the exclusive Student Startup Madness “Tournament Sponsor” from January to March 11 and will donate a maximum of $10,000 to one winning school’s entrepreneurship program, based on terms and rules outlined below.

Student Startup Madness is the only nationwide collegiate tournament focused on digital media startups, with finals at the South By Southwest festival in Austin, Texas, in March. The new StartupMad Campus Challenge extends this competitive activity to the campuses.

How the StartupMad Campus Challenge Works

To get started, students, alumni, family and friends of a college’s entrepreneurship program must:

  1. download the SEARCH@ app via www.SearchAt.com
    (or just type “@” in the iTunes App Store);
  2. text “me@” in the SEARCH@ app and follow instructions;
  3. text your school’s hashtag (see list below) in the SEARCH@ app to verify your school and share the result with three or more friends;
  4. follow Student Startup Madness (@StartupMad) on Twitter and Facebook; then
  5. answer each challenge by following the directions every week.

StartupMad challenges will be announced every Wednesday via Twitter, Facebook and the SEARCH@ app. Challenges will include gathering and posting information about local and regional entrepreneurship events, funding sources, student startups, alumni founders, and other interesting and fun information to showcase how active and entrepreneurial a campus is.

All this activity will be tracked via social media and the SEARCH@ app. The most active campus—as measured by app downloads, participants, quantity of information added and social media activity—will win money, software and services for the school’s entrepreneurship center or program. Based on the number of verified active users per campus hashtag, the top school can win as much as $10,000 … plus software and services valued at more than $2,000. (Terms: Winner is determined by the number of “verified active users” who have texted the school’s hashtag AND shared with three or more people. The monetary prize amount will be based on $1 for each verified active user, to a maximum of $10,000.)

SEARCH@ is a new iPhone app especially useful when you are mobile and searching for things nearby: such as food, parties, bands, events and more. It chooses simple results: best, closest, and most popular… so you don’t have to drill through page after page of search results to find what you want.

“We are excited to get our campuses more involved in the madness,” says Sean Branagan, creator of the SSM concept and tournament, and director of the Center for Digital Media Entrepreneurship at Syracuse University’s S.I. Newhouse School of Public Communications. “The StartupMad Challenge promotes on-campus entrepreneurship, while continuing the SSM vibe of collegiate competition and fun. We are so happy that SEARCH@ came forward to make it possible.”

The 2014-15 SSM Regional Host Universities (in alphabetical order, with hashtag)

  • Arizona State University #StartupMadASU
  • Bucknell University #StartupMadBucknell
  • Cornell University #StartupMadCornell
  • Georgia State University #StartupMadGSU
  • Michigan State University #StartupMadMSU
  • Seton Hall University #StartupMadSetonHall
  • St Louis University #StartupMadSLU
  • University of California at Davis #StartupMadUCDavis
  • University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign #StartupMadIllinois
  • University of Washington #StartupMadUW

Plus SSM Regional Hosts from past years

  • Emory University #StartupMadEmory
  • Syracuse University #StartupMadCuse
  • University of Texas at Austin #StartupMadUTAustin

About SEARCH@ app

SEARCH@ is simply search that’s been remade for a mobile generation that loves to share. Fast and light with highly localized content in a familiar messaging interface, SEARCH@ is best used one-handed. What does that mean? Results are always relevant, users can add content while holding a pizza in the other hand, and everything is shareable with just one touch. Download (iPhone only) at searchat.com, or find it in the iTunes App Store by simply typing “@”.

About Student Startup Madness

The Student Startup Madness concept was developed by Sean Branagan, director of the Center for Digital Media Entrepreneurship at the S.I. Newhouse School of Public Communications at Syracuse University. Student Startup Madness, along with its sponsors and host universities, believes in American entrepreneurship and on-campus startups—and wants to help young student entrepreneurs succeed and become a part of the SXSW experience.

For more on Student Startup Madness, visit the website (https://studentstartupmadness.com), see us on Facebook, or follow us on Twitter: @StartupMad.

Contact: Sean Branagan
(315) 443-6310
startups@syr.edu