ACE National Student Comp Calls for Entries — Canada

Check it out: “Students who also run their own businesses are now eligible to enter the 2009 National Student Entrepreneur Competition, operated by ACE and proudly presented by CIBC.

Nominations and self-nominations opened this week for the competition, which celebrates commitment and determination among student entrepreneurs.

The competition is open to full-time students at Canadian universities or colleges who run their own business.

Twelve provincial champions will be named in January 2009, earning the right to represent their province at one of three regional competitions held in Calgary, Halifax and Toronto.

Regional champions will then move on to the final round of competition next May in Toronto.

Each provincial champion will receive complimentary lodging and travel to attend their regional event. Regional champions will receive a $1,000 cash prize plus complimentary lodging and travel to the ACE National Exposition, and the national champion will receive a $10,000 cash prize.”

Here is the website for the competition.

Is the Venture Capital Industry Shrinking?

Here is a short blurb that I found at VentureBeat (via Digg.com) which claims that the venture capital industry may be shrinking. Check out the graphic. While I don’t want to spend too much time on this two thoughts come to mind a) part of this is cyclical as institutional investors sometimes choose different types of investments (ie private equity, packaged sub prime mortgages, real estate, etc.) and b) does this mean that business plan competitions (which are based on VC models to a degree) will drop in popularity. BTW, I don’t think so. I think that the applications for business plan competitions are large and I see their continued growth.