Tough Tech Prize

The Rock Center, in collaboration with the Business and Environment, Health Care, and Social Enterprise Initiatives, offers the Tough Technology Prize for the New Venture Competition. This prize is designed to recognize (co)founders of ventures with high levels of uncertainty around both technical feasibility and market demand.

Tough Tech Venture

Definition

Tough Tech ventures are those working on transformative technology that solves the world’s most important challenges through the convergence of breakthrough science, engineering, and leadership. It is frequently a venture commercializing a breakthrough idea in which founders and investors are not likely to realize an early profit.

Characteristics

  • Industries include but are not limited to cleantech, medtech, biotech, robotics, AI@Scale, etc.

  • The venture has a high level of technical uncertainty, often requiring long commercialization or R&D timelines.

  • Expert knowledge is necessary to develop the technology and transition into a viable business model.

  • The technology or research has demonstrable viability based on established in-lab research and a well-designed commercialization path to test the product and potential market demand.

Prize

Award: $15,000

Prize Guidelines

  • The prize is industry agnostic.

  • The team must submit a final application by the New Venture Competition deadline for any of the 3 tracks (Business, Social Enterprise, or Alumni Tracks).

  • Teams that qualify for the Tough Tech Prize will be evaluated asynchronously by judges.

  • The venture will be reviewed for scientific/technological feasibility, as outlined in an executive summary of their technology and pitch deck.

Review Process

  • Ventures self-select for prize consideration in Reviewr (NVC application platform).

  • Applicants are evaluated for their fit with the Tough Tech Prize venture characteristics.

  • The venture will provide a summary of the research or characteristics that establish them as a tough technology effort. The summary is less than two pages in length.

  • The summary and pitch deck of each qualifying team will be reviewed and ranked by a relevant panel of experts to evaluate the application and technology feasibility. For the purposes of this review in order to align the expertise of judges with the nature of the technolgoy, entries will be categorized either as a biotech/life science venture or as a deep tech venture (e.g. non-software, hard tech solutions, inclusive of climate-focused solutions).

  • The judges will select a single Tough Tech Prize winner asyncronously based on a scoring rubric (.pdf).

  • The winner will be announced with New Venture Competition finalists at the Finale.

Submission Deadlines

The team must submit a final application by the New Venture Competition deadline.

Student Business & Social Enterprise Tracks

January 31, 2024

Alumni Track

January 16, 2024