Introducing: the Bill Gross Prize for Entrepreneurship
Commencing during the 2023-2024 school year, the Bill Gross Prize for Entrepreneurship opened with students submitting over 80 novel business ideas for the competition in its inaugural year.
Established from a gift from IdeaLab founder, entrepreneur, and Caltech alumnus and Trustee Bill Gross (BS '81), the Prize aims to foster the entrepreneurial innovations of current Caltech students and provide a means by which to make their ideas a reality.
The competition clearly spoke to the entrepreneurial interest on campus. During the informational session for the Prize, held at the Caltech Innovation Center in November 2023, more than 50 students came to learn more about the competition, share ideas, and hear Gross speak. By the time the submission deadline came around in January 2024, OTTCP had received 81 entries for the competition, making it difficult for the Entrepreneurship Team to narrow them down. In the end, they chose 15 teams – eight undergraduate, seven graduate – to proceed to the finalist stage.
Each finalist team partook in an initial mentorship meeting with Mr. Gross himself, before OTTCP reached out to its global network to pair teams with an industry mentor in appropriate fields. Six industry mentors volunteered their time and expertise to help students hone their business models, identify their best target markets, and, of course, perfect their pitches in the two months leading up to the final competition.
OTTCP and Advancement and Alumni Relations (AAR) worked together to facilitate the competition itself, which took place at the Chen Building in April 2024. Three judges from the Caltech community – Ajay Kshatriya, partner at Wilson Hill Ventures; Amanda Cashin (PhD ‘06), advisor at Wilson Hill Ventures; and Dave Licata, president and CFO of TORL BioTherapeutics and executive chairman of 1200 Pharma – undertook the challenging task of deciding on the top three teams.
However, in a surprise for all finalists, sister firms Sunstone Management, Inc. and American Lending Center (ALC) contributed an additional donation of $100,000 to allow every finalist team in the inaugural competition to walk away with a prize of at least $10,000.
Since then, first place winner CAD.it has received further funding as a result of the competition. Second place winner Luria Health – originally named Chiron – went on to take part in the Timothy D. Ryan Summer Entrepreneurship Program, which third place winner String had participated in through OTTCP the year before.
For those who missed out on attending the inaugural year's event, not to worry – the Prize will be funding the competition for another three years: an exciting opportunity for the Caltech community to celebrate the innovation happening at the student level.