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The MIT $100K Entrepreneurship Competition is one of the largest and most famous business plan competitions in the world. Entirely student-managed, students from all programs and levels at MIT organize and enter the $100K. Teams must include at least 1 full-time MIT student, but membership is not restricted to the MIT community. The Competition is overseen by the MIT School of Engineering and is located in the MIT Enterpreneurship Center at the MIT Sloan School of Management.

It was started in 1990 as the $10K competition, and continued to grow throughout the 1990's. In 1996 the $10K evolved into the $50K with $30K going to the winner and $10K each of two runners up. In 2006, the $50K added an additional competition focused on business plans for low-income communities to complement the traditional business venture competition. Subsequentially, the competition has rebranded as the MIT $100K.

While the $100K competition is held in the spring (or second semester of the academic year), the MIT $1K Business Idea Competition is a "warm-up event" held in the Fall. There are ten categories for submission, and each winning submission receives a cash prize of $1K. $1K entrants usually continue to grow their idea, team and business plan in preparation for the $100K competition in the spring.

The Business Venture Competition is the traditional business plan competiiton associated with the MIT $100K. In the Spring, semi-finalists are selected from all business plan submissions. Semi-finalists submit more detailed business plans and 5-6 finalists are then chosen. At the awards ceremony, the top team within the business venture competition is awarded the Robert P. Goldberg Grand Prize as the winner of the business venture component of the $100K competition.

The Entrepreneurship for Development Competition is a competition for business plans that are judged on the following criteria: uniqueness of business idea, management strength, path to sustainability and social impact. The competition was added in 2006 as a complement to the Business Venture Competition due to increasing demand and interest in socially conscious ideas. In the spring, semi-finalists are selected from all business plan submissions. Semi-finalists submit more detailed business plans and 5-6 finalists are then chosen. At the awards ceremony, the top team is awarded the Entrepreneurship for Development grand prize.

In 1998, a dual award within the Venture Competition was awarded to a pair of finalists including Volunteer Community Connection. At the time, VCC was a non-traditional entry into the competition and has since served as a motivating example for the genesis of the MIT $100K Developmental Entrepreneurship Competition. As a result, they are listed as a winner and implicitly as an innovator within the Entrepreneurship for Development Competition.

Since its founding, the $100K Competition has helped launch more than 60 companies with an aggregate value of greater than $10.5 billion dollars. Prominent $100K alumni companies include Akamai, net.Genesis, and C-Bridge.

• MIT $100K Official Site
• MIT $100K Blog