The Ewing Marion Kauffman Foundation has launched iStart (www.iStart.org), a Web-based platform that helps organisations simplify how they market and administer business plan competitions worldwide.

iStart is also designed to connect entrepreneurs to a network of support, including mentors and others who can assist them in the growth of their businesses.

“We created iStart to make competitions easier to run and participate in,” said Katie Petersen, who manages the iStart programme for the Kauffman Foundation. “And, importantly, we will do something that hasn’t been done before by making the thousands of plans that are part of these competitions available to the world as models for aspiring entrepreneurs and possible opportunities for mentors, investors and service providers.”

In the United States alone, more than 50 universities conduct business plan competitions annually, awarding up to $10 million in prizes and in-kind services. But the time and complexity required to administer the competitions can limit their size and quality, prevent organizations from holding them, and create headaches for administrators.

As the first customisable platform to provide this service, iStart makes it easy to administer business plan competitions and provides a single resource for every aspect of what can be a complex undertaking—from registering applicants and judges to receiving applicants’ business plans, establishing judging criteria and conducting online judging, managing communications with participants and judges, managing deadlines, and monitoring applications and the judging process.

Besides bringing consistency and transparency to competitions across years, departments and vertical tracks, iStart will expose business plan competitions to an international network of other competitions and student users.