Judge Toolkit

ACC InVenture Prize 2025 Judge’s Toolkit

Here you will find all the tools you need to judge the March 31st Q & A and April 2, 2025 live competition!

Thanks again for volunteering your time to serve as a distinguished judge for the 2025 ACC InVenture Prize Competition hosted by the University of Notre Dame. The main goal of our judging panel will be to choose our 1st ($15,000) and 2nd place ($10,000) winners. All winners will be selected and announced on April 2, 2025 on the 7:00 p.m. live PBS broadcast of the final round.

For information regarding the competition see www.accinventureprize.com and www.accinventureprize-backstage.com.

Our 2025 Judges

Sri Divakaruni

Vice President Of Global Business Development, Rhizome Network

LinkedIn

Adrienne Watson

Chief Scientific Officer, World Precision Instruments

LinkedIn

M. Cole Jones

Corporate Innovator | Gaming & Web3 | Venture Catalyst

LinkedIn

Judge Activities and Agenda

Wednesday, March 26 - Wednesday, April 2

  • Starting March 26 you can review team ventures at https://www.accinventureprize.com/teams

  • Weekend March 26 - 30: Review team pitch videos to gain familiarity and first impressions - 13 teams with videos just over 2 minutes each.

  • Monday 3/31: Zoom Q&A with teams - we've scheduled a window of approximately 5 hours to give each team a 10-minute Q&A with the judges via Zoom followed by a 30 minute judge deliberations session to get sound bites about what impressed you for production. Full schedule here.

  • Tuesday 4/1: Fly to South Bend for 6:00 welcome dinner and introductions at Seven on 9.

  • Wednesday 4/2: Judges lunch at 12:00 at Rohrs; Grab and Go Dinner at Legends at 5:00; 6:30 On Stage for Production Looks at DPAC with the live broadcast at 7:00 during which judges ask each team one final question and make their final decision for 1st and 2nd place; 8:45 Reception at Seven on 9.

  • Thursday 4/2: Return home

Scoring Sheet

Click here to access the score sheet.

Each judge has a unique pin that will be emailed to you individually. Please check your inbox to retrieve the pin, subject line: “ACC IP Judge Pin.” We encourage you to log in before March 31st and practice with the toggles if possible. Judging criteria is found at the top of the scoring sheet.

Judging Q&A Schedule

1st round Q&A will take place on March 31st via Zoom. 

Click here to access zoom for the Q&A

Each judge has been assigned as a question leader. The question leader is responsible for asking the first question after we stop playing the pre-recorded pitch. We encourage you to review the pitches and materials found below ahead of time and jot down notes ahead of time if possible. There will be approximately 8 minutes for Q&A with each team.

Q&A Schedule is here.

Logistics

Each team is composed of 1-5 students and will get 10 minutes in a Zoom meeting room with the judges. We will introduce the team by team name and the university they are representing and then play the 2:00 minute pitch they have submitted for the competition. As soon as the video stops playing, the judge question lead will kick off the live Q&A section of the competition. You will have approximately 8:00 mins for Q&A with each team.

You will see a 1-minute warning via the chat/broadcast message. At exactly 10-minutes, Melissa will announce time is up. Students will log off and judges will remain in the Judging breakout room. We will only have a 5-minute buffer between teams to score.

Competition Websites

Competing Team Info

Click here to access the 2025 Teams page.

You will see the team name participants and a short description. Click on the team name to see the following information:

  • Team Long Description

  • Team Pitch Video

Event Contact

Please don’t hesitate to reach out to Melissa Andrew if you have any questions.

email: mcheng@nd.edu