UF AI Days Gator Tank
An artificial intelligence business competition
If you have a business idea and want to use AI to bring that plan to life, the UF AI Days Gator Tank competition may be right up your entrepreneurial alley.
Open to University of Florida students and hosted by the Warrington College of Business’s Entrepreneurship and Innovation Center, the competition can help you launch and grow your businesses while leveraging artificial intelligence.
The top 4 teams will compete for a chance to win up to $5,000 in Luby Microgrants. Along the way, the the center offers mentoring and business resources so you can bring your cool ideas to life.
Competition format
Graduate and undergraduate competitors enter individually or in teams to create growth-oriented business models.
Submit your pitch
Your pitch can include slides, videos, or idea summaries. You should submit the right mix to impress the judges.
Initial judging
The preliminary round of judging will reduce the number of entries to the top four.
The final four
The competitors who make it to the Final 4 will present their 15-minute pitch to a panel of judges, who ask questions for 15 minutes. The event will be open to the public.
What’s your pitch?
UF students who are ready to use AI to advance their business idea should enter the Gator Tank competition. Indicating your intent to compete is the first step, followed by submission of your pitch by Sept. 26. The finalists present their pitches in a public event on Oct. 27.
Prizes and judging
Up to $5,000 in grant funding will be provided to the teams selected. The prize money is offered as seed money to promote the pitch’s enactment. The business must actually be started, and prize money checks are written to the new companies, not the individuals.
Pitch criteria
Judges review the complete business plans on the following criteria:
- Concept strength
- Market
- Economics of the business
- Operations
- Technical feasibility
- Management team
- Financing
What judges look for
Judges will look for both the innovativeness of the business idea and the quality of the pitch are evaluated. The competition rewards creative thinking regarding new markets, products, and services, as well as the team’s strategy to implement its plans.
Competition rules and guidelines
The entrant must certify that at least one member of the team is an enrolled student at the University of Florida, or recent graduate.
- Students can enter the competition individually or form teams.
- The team leader must be an enrolled student at any college or school at UF.
- A pitch is not required to register. You will have an opportunity to develop your pitch prior to the submission deadline of Friday, Sept. 26.
- The pitches submitted must be the team’s own original work and ideas.
- Have a clear vision of what business you’re trying to create, and have a good idea of the potential as well as the issues of the intended business.
- If needed, team members can be updated throughout the competition.
The team leader must be a full- or part-time UF student, undergraduate or graduate level, who is currently enrolled in a degree program. Other team members can be non-UF college students or community members, however, non-student members are not allowed to present as part of the team in the competition.
Only one submission of a pitch per team is permitted.
The pitch should contain the following:
- Company description
- Product/service name and description/elevator pitch (customer value proposition)
- Stage of company development (idea, seed, emerging, established)
- How does Artificial Intelligence create value for your business idea?
- What are the AI techniques/algorithms that make your business ideas feasible?
- What market are you addressing?
- What problems are you trying to solve? (Describe your solution to the problem.)
- What is your unique competitive advantage?
- What are the most important metrics of success in your business model?
- How does your company make money?
- Competitors/industry description
- Current stage of the business idea
- Management team & advisors
Individuals may be a member of only one team. Teams may be as small as one student, and there is no maximum size, but bear in mind that there are practical limits to the size of any working group.
Ideas submitted as part of a team’s new business venture must represent the original work of the team members. Team members will sign a certification to this effect as part of the initial entry.
If the new venture has already received funding from any outside sources (angel investors, other competitions, etc.), amounts, investors, and dates of funding must be disclosed in the initial entry. This competition is intended only for student teams that have not received any formal outside investment from venture capital firms or other certified investors and that have received $50,000* or less in outside funds by the start of the fall academic semester. Most teams have yet to raise any monies.
Submitted pitches are protected in the spirit of non-disclosure, and all entry materials will be treated as company confidential. The only people with access to the pitches will be judges and select members of the organizing committee. Materials will not be distributed to any other party unless requested by an entrant team. No other provisions are made to protect intellectual property.
Entrants must adhere to all submission deadlines and guidelines. Pitches must be submitted no later than the appropriate due date and time. No late submissions will be accepted and any submissions that do not follow the guidelines and requirements will not be reviewed.
Entries will be judged by a panel of faculty and professionals involved in the entrepreneurship and investment space. Judges may be successful entrepreneurs, venture capitalists, angel investors, or professional service providers working with the venture community. Any entry is subject to minimum criteria in terms of market potential, viability, and other factors, as determined by the judging panel’s experience. If no entries meet the minimum criteria, prizes might not be awarded. Throughout any and all phases of the competition, all decisions of the judges are final.
Prize guidelines
Except as stated below, prize money is granted only to the business entity that the winning team forms, e.g. a corporation or LLC. If the winning teams fail to form the business entity and request the prize money from the Entrepreneurship & Innovation Center within one year following the competition, the money remains in the competition fund and is not disbursed. Award money will be granted only to seed the start-up and development of the winning idea (e.g. no substitutions may be made without the approval of the Entrepreneurship & Innovation Center). Teams and their resultant business entities are responsible for any tax consequences of the prize.
At least 25% of the winning business entity formed must be owned by one or more of the UF students on the winning team. If at the time of the competition, the venture has already been formed and the student participant(s) hold less than 25% equity, consideration will be given as to whether the venture was conceived and launched with co-founders who were UF students within the past four academic years.
The university reserves the right to disqualify, in its sole and absolute discretion, any team from the competition at any time. Reasons for disqualification may include but are not limited to, plagiarism and any other form of academic dishonesty, misappropriation or infringement of the intellectual property of others, and any failure to comply with these rules and regulations. Disqualified teams shall forfeit any and all prizes awarded to them.
Prize money will be awarded as follows:
The prize money will be distributed to the company or entity that is moving the business plan forward in one increment of 100% of the total prize money after the winners have been announced.
Thinking about your pitch?
Reach out to our team and we’ll walk you through the process and answer your questions.
Entrepreneurship & Innovation Center
352-273-0330