Tag Blog

Competition for the GRA/TAG $300,000 Grand Prize Goes “Hollywood” on TAG TV

Tuesday, April 14, 2009

Audience voting will determine the “wild card” winners heading toward the grand prize! Just as American Idol and Dancing with the Stars combine professional judging and audience tallies to determine final winners, an online audience voting feature for the best company video presentation has been added for a second year to the TAG/GRA annual Business Launch Competition where candidates vie for a grand prize of cash and services totaling $300,000! The online Fast Forward People’s Choice audience voting will take two companies that the judges did not select into the semi-finals as wild cards.

Online voting will continue for 17 participating Business Launch competitor technology companies from April 10 through the 29th in the People’s Choice contest. To gain audience votes, each company refined their venture capital “elevator” pitch into a one minute presentation which was professionally taped and put online for audience votes on TAG TV at TAGtvOnline.com. Every People’s Choice vote will be important! The two highest vote getters will become Fast Forward wild card entries – if the judges did not select them to present and defend their business plan as semi-finalists in May – leading to the final judging of the prize winner on June 3, 2008.

Who will be Georgia’s venture capital “idol” and stay in the competition? Considering the videos are not meant to be serious presentations to the judges – that comes later—it will be interesting to see who breaks out of the box and shows passion or gets audience attention in some other way at the end of the two-week contest. Be sure to vote for a favorite emerging technology company video on TAGtvOnline.com!

According to one of the two 2008 People’s Choice winners, CEO of ProperNotice Henry Dan, the video competition wild card position in the semi-finals was crucial. “Looking back, without that video, probably we would not have made it to the Finals. Because of that win, we got to present to the semi-final judges and, due to a skillful presentation and an excellent Q&A, we were selected to go the finals,” he said. Many contestants agreed that the competition, although fun, helped them refine their value proposition as well as their contact base while executing strategies for stimulating votes.

Peoples Choice participants will be presented not only to the Georgia technology and venture capital communities on TAGtvOnline.com but also to a world of opportunities afforded with placement and appropriate investment search keywords on the most popular peer-to-peer video sites such as YouTube. All 17 competing companies have the chance of being discovered by investors and customers in Georgia and around the world!

The exciting annual GRA/TAG Business Launch Competition is an event designed to help a local start up technology-based company launch its business. Applicants, then semifinalists, then finalists vie for the $100,000 cash award and services valued at an additional $200,000, for a total grand prize of $300,000. The comprehensive prize provided by GRA and TAG is a way to reward high-tech entrepreneurship and assure a deserving Georgia start up company has everything in place to be successful.

The purpose of the Georgia Research Alliance (GRA) and Technology Association of Georgia (TAG) Business Launch Competition is to support economic development in Georgia by encouraging and supporting the creation and growth of new companies that will strengthen and expand Georgia’s strategic high tech clusters. Each year, GRA and TAG select the high-tech clusters that will be emphasized and, this year, the technology industry segment is Internet Technologies, which includes companies that are developing products, online services, or backend technologies that are using or extending the reach, flexibility, and ease of the Internet.

This year, the GRA/TAG competition, too, supports its chosen industry segment by expanding its Internet message delivery that Georgia supports economic development with substantial encouragement to new companies. Worldwide peer-to-peer video technology distribution is coupled and packaged with the excitement of the online voting for Georgia’s Peoples Choice on TAGtvOnline.com, a joint venture of TAG and globalspeak.com. Stay tuned for the announcement of the winners!