Arkansas Capital Corp. announced Monday the 20th anniversary of the Arkansas Governor’s Cup Collegiate Business Plan competition.
The 2020 Governor’s Cup begins Jan. 6 and will end with an awards luncheon on April 9 at the Statehouse Convention Center in Little Rock.
Since the first competition in 2001, more than 2,700 undergraduate and graduate students from 18 campuses have competed, submitting 849 business ideas, according to a news release. More than 1,000 representatives from Arkansas’ public and private business sectors have served as volunteer judges.
Teams who compete are not required to start their businesses, but gain rigorous and real-world entrepreneurial experience, Arkansas Capital Corp. said.
The Governor’s Cup has also earned national recognition as one of America’s top business plan competitions for college students. It is exclusive to Arkansas students currently enrolled in a degree-seeking program at any of the state’s colleges or universities.
The cash prize pool totals $154,000, and it is more than double the $60,000 cash prize pool for the first competition in 2001.
More than $2.35 million in cash has been awarded since the Governor’s Cup was established. In 2020, the first-, second- and third-place teams in both the undergraduate and graduate divisions will be awarded $25,000, $15,000 and $10,000, respectively.
The 2020 title sponsor is Dhu Thompson of the DMTG Group in Little Rock. This will be the third year of title sponsorship by Thompson, who sold his company, Delta Plastics of Little Rock, in 2019.
Before becoming the title sponsor, Thompson and Delta Plastics sponsored the competition’s Innovation Division award from 2009-2016.
The Walton Family Foundation of Bentonville will also continue, for a second year, to be enterprise level sponsors at $30,000. And Simmons Bank of Pine Bluff is a new enterprise level sponsor.
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