Letter of Intent Overview and Submission Requirements
- Letter of Intent (LOI) Overview:
- Challenge Teams provide information regarding the members of their Team, indicate how Challenge Team members meet eligibility requirements and outline details regarding how they intend to participate in the Challenge. Challenge Teams also indicate how they will allocate their Business Plan Phase prize money should they win and provide a Stakeholder Engagement Analysis (optional). Steps to complete the LOI are provided below
- Important note: Approximately 10 teams per invention will be accepted into the Challenge. When LOIs have been accepted, we will indicate this via a "ticker" on the Teams Participating tab so that you will know how many additional LOIs have already been accepted
- Please DO NOT contact Inventors directly. All contact to inventors should be made through the CAI team
- Challenge Teams provide information regarding the members of their Team, indicate how Challenge Team members meet eligibility requirements and outline details regarding how they intend to participate in the Challenge. Challenge Teams also indicate how they will allocate their Business Plan Phase prize money should they win and provide a Stakeholder Engagement Analysis (optional). Steps to complete the LOI are provided below
- What Constitutes a Complete Submission:
- Overview: The Challenge uses an online system. All Challenge materials and attachments must be submitted electronically through this system
- LOI Submission Forms: The LOI forms require the following information: the invention selected, Challenge Team members and their capabilities, Challenge Team member resumes (please see information below regarding your mandatory team discipline representation), and an agreement to comply with confidentiality terms. Challenge Team leaders need to populate an LOI for the whole team; you can find it here. NOTE: For security purposes in order to return to your survey, you must access it from the same computer and browser as you first filled out your survey
- Challenge Team members (core team members, mentors and advisors) need to populate a different LOI form; you can find it here. To return to an existing LOI you've started and saved, click here. Attached below is a downloadable copy of the LOI. If you cannot access your LOI form due to technical problems, email Jonathan@thecenterforadvancinginnovation.org for a direct link
- Attachments to the LOI Submission Form: Upload these accompanying documents to your Wiggio in a folder labeled "Letter of Intent"
- Challenge Team member resumes (Resume's are limited to two (2) pages per team member. Please include a header on the top of each resume indicating what their role is on the team (e.g. Core Team Member, Mentor, Advisor, etc.))
- Prize Allocation Form, which indicates how your Team will divide the Business Plan prize money
- OPTIONAL: Stakeholder Engagement Tool
- OPTIONAL: one file that contains collaborator information
- Important Notes on Submissions:
- File Naming Convention: In order for reviewers to easily identify attachments, please use the following naming convention for files to be uploaded to this attachment. 'University' must be the university of the Team Leader: 'university' - 'invention #'.'group letter' deliverable type.format (e.g. UCLA - 3.A Resume.pdf)
- If there are multiple groups within the same university with the same invention you may coordinate within your University or the CAI team will assign you a letter at the end of your group name
- Only one file should be uploaded for each attachment category (Resumes, Prize Allocation Form, Stakeholder Engagement Form). For example, if you are uploading resumes for each member of your Challenge Team, please combine all resumes into one file and upload that one file to the resume category
- Each attachment should be no more than 1MB in file size
- Image files and executable files will not be accepted (e.g. jpg, .gif, .bmp, .tif, .exe)
Mandatory Team Disciplines
Nearly every successful Challenge Team requires several disciplines to be successful. In the life sciences industry, it is even more important to have a cross-functional team given the complexities in launching a new product. As a result, we are requiring that each Challenge Team have the following disciplines:
Please note, additional disciplines are required for the following inventions: Invention #1 and #3. Invention #1 requires a computer science discipline; invention #3 requires an engineering discipline
- Business: can be pursuing an MBA or come from the business community
- Legal: can be in law school or have already earned a degree. Several areas of legal knowledge may be useful; these include but are not limited to: ability to evaluate IP, branding evaluation, negotiating licenses etc.
- Medical/Scientific: can be in medical school, a post-doc, in residency or, alternatively, a medical doctor, graduate with a scientific degree, or someone in the medical/scientific profession working in the Life Sciences industry
- Seasoned Entrepreneur: A person who has founded a Life Sciences, biomedical and/or health IT company; raised dilutive and non-dilutive capital for that company and have exited. We prefer entrepreneurs that have tenure of at least five years (a minimum of three years) in a start-up and also have had corporate experience
Please note, additional disciplines are required for the following inventions: Invention #1 and #3. Invention #1 requires a computer science discipline; invention #3 requires an engineering discipline
Team Member Roles
When entering information about your team, you will need to indicate their role; please find below team roles:
- A Core Team Member: is defined as a person who is accountable for deliverables; there must be three student core team members
- Team Leader: is defined as the student Core Team Member single point of contact
- A Mentor: is defined as a person who has domain experience who will actively work with the team on a daily basis as the team needs
- An Advisor: is defined as a person who has domain expertise and the team uses for Q&A sessions only
- A Collaborator: is defined as an entity that can improve your probability of success in this challenge; it could include seed funders, services firms, e.g., Clinical Research Outsourcers, law firms, etc.
Letter of Intent Timing
The Challenge will begin officially on October 1st, 2013 with the letter of intent phase. Acceptable LOIs will be approved as they are received. LOIs will no longer be accepted when the Challenge Team has received approximately 10 acceptable LOIs. The final due date for LOI submission is November 29th, 2013 at 8pm Eastern Time. Final communication to prospective participants will be performed by December 4th, 2013
KEY DATES:
KEY DATES:
- LOI Submissions Start Being Accepted: October 1st, 2013, 7am Eastern Time
- LOI Submissions No Longer Accepted: November 29th, 2013, 8pm Eastern Time
Letter of Intent Steps for Challenge Teams
- Read all information on this page, the Challenge overview, eligibility and rules section of this website and the FAQs before preparing your LOI
- Join the Wiggio platform
- Select an invention around which you'd like to form a Challenge Team; you can find the inventions here.
- Please note the "ticker" on the Teams Participating Tab. If the ticker has reached 10 accepted submissions, no additional submissions will be accepted for this invention
- Create your team. We realize that some teams will be formed across Universities and disparate geographic regions. We've established Wiggio to help you find team members and also to collaborate. Please follow our established process on the Wiggio platform to help you find partners; you can find the instructions here. Remember to invite and give admin privileges to the CAI Admin
- Find a seasoned entrepreneur to be on your team. There are several ways you can find an entrepreneur. We've partnered with two organizations to provide support in this area. You can contact them here. You can also find a team using the Wiggio platform, please find the instructions here
- Fill out your LOI form. The LOI form is available now. Team leaders need to populate an LOI for the whole team; you can find it here.
- Team members (core team members, mentors and advisors) need to populate a different form; you can find it here
- Fill out the mandatory Prize Allocation form for the competition; you can find it here. LOAD ON WIGGIO in your LOI folder
- Pull together all your team member resumes to be submitted with the LOI form; put in one file. Resume's are limited to two (2) pages per team member. Please include a header on the top of each resume indicating what their role is on the team (e.g. Core Team Member, Mentor, Advisor, etc.). LOAD ON WIGGIO in your LOI folder
OPTIONAL
- Please consider populating the optional stakeholder engagement form; you can find it here. Upload this form to your Letter of Intent folder, which you will create in your Wiggio group
- Please also consider creating a document that contains all your collaborators (put all the collaborators information in one document with headers to separate different collaborators); please upload all collaborator information in one file on Wiggio
Evaluation Process
- LoIs will be accepted on a rolling basis starting on October 1st, 2013
- We will evaluate your submission as it is entered into our system based on the criteria outlined below
- We will either reject or accept your submission and will communicate this to you within three days of your submission. Your submission will be rejected if the mandatory team disciplines outlined above are not represented. If your submission is accepted, you may start working on your deliverables in the business plan phase
We will no longer accept LOIs for a specific invention if the "ticker" on the Teams Participating Tab is 10 or we reach November 29th, 2013
Criteria and Guidelines
Overall Criteria: Adhere to the Eligibility requirements and Official Rules
Mandatory Documents: Provide all mandatory documents outlined above in the "Letter of Intent Overview and Required Submission;" as indicated, you will find a sample Prize Allocation form here and the LOI form to populate here
Scoring Criteria: Please find below criteria and guidelines that will assist you in entering and winning the Challenge
DIMENSION 1- ABILITY TO EXECUTE
Criteria I: Team Capabilities
Criteria II: Entrepreneurs Background
Criteria III: University Collaboration
DIMENSION 2- SUSTAINABILITY
Criteria I: Industry Collaboration
Criteria II: Funding
Mandatory Documents: Provide all mandatory documents outlined above in the "Letter of Intent Overview and Required Submission;" as indicated, you will find a sample Prize Allocation form here and the LOI form to populate here
Scoring Criteria: Please find below criteria and guidelines that will assist you in entering and winning the Challenge
DIMENSION 1- ABILITY TO EXECUTE
Criteria I: Team Capabilities
- Core team members have invention relevant experience, specifically breast cancer
- Team contains members with R&D, marketing/business development, manufacturing and other operational experience in the biomedical industry
Criteria II: Entrepreneurs Background
- Founded a biomedical company
- Has been with company 3 or more years
- Successfully exited a company, e.g., sold company, IPO, M&A, etc.
- Raised dilutive and non-dilutive funding
- Licensed inventions from the Federal government or a University
Criteria III: University Collaboration
- Demonstrated cross-university collaboration to gain invention-relevant skills / experience
DIMENSION 2- SUSTAINABILITY
Criteria I: Industry Collaboration
- Comprehensive stakeholder assessment
- Identified collaborators to improve probability of success, e.g. R&D, CROs, etc.
Criteria II: Funding
- Both dilutive and non-dilutive funders have been strategically identified
- Potential funders are collaborators, mentors and/or advisors to the team