On Monday November 14th, the Fall 2016 cohort of the UGA Idea Accelerator completed its 8-week program with a demo day competition among the remaining eleven teams. Finalists made their last pitch to a panel of judges and a crowd of nearly 150 in hopes of winning $5,000 to build their startup. The winner was Nedza’s Waffles, a pop-up waffle and ice-cream service. Downtown Canvas, an online peer-to-peer art marketplace that won Next Top Entrepreneur earlier this year, placed second. In a first ever tie for third place was VitaBink, a patent-pending medicinal delivery system for infants and Reservoir, a patent-pending soil moisture monitoring system for the landscaping and agricultural markets.

This fifth cohort of the Idea Accelerator program began in September with 45 original teams, the largest initial group yet. Over the course of the 8-week curriculum, designed by Advanced Technology Development Center incubator, the initial 45 was whittled down to the final 11 based on key startup success areas such as Customer Discovery, Financial Literacy, and Investor Readiness. In the final pitch competition, a panel of four judges assessed each idea’s business viability: the problem being solved, whether the solution actually solves the problem, and how suited the team members are to the task. The judges deliberated for twenty minutes, comparing their impressions of each team, before agreeing on the winners.

The Idea Accelerator is operated by local economic development nonprofit Four Athens in partnership with the ATDC, the UGA Terry Entrepreneurship Program, Thinc UGA, the law firm of Founders Legal, CPA firm of HA&W, and Athens First Bank & Trust. Representatives of these sponsoring organizations serve as subject matter experts, mentors, and guides for the participating teams throughout the program.

Applications to join the Spring 2017 cohort are now open at fourathens.com/accelerator. Since its first round two years ago, the Idea Accelerator has awarded $20,000 to five winning business teams, including the winners of the Spring 2016 competition, MiraBlue Bio, a biotech startup led by student Song Kue, and QuickPick, led by UGA student Larson Collier. Other previous winners include eleez, a concert ticketing startup founded by UGA student Robert Enck, and the first cohort winner, Athens-based adventure sharing platform Vestigo.