Worcester State University is officially bringing back the Robert K. O’Brien Next Big Idea competition, ending a five-year hiatus for the contest where students compete for seed funding to launch startup businesses and social ventures.
This year’s contestants include student groups developing their business acumen in the Spring semester’s Introduction to Entrepreneurship course. Their pitches are the final product of a semester-long process of learning about entrepreneurship, developing and testing original ideas, and presenting projects to their Introduction to Entrepreneurship professor and classmates.
The judges include a variety of business leaders from the Worcester area and beyond. They are Adi Tibrewal, a senior portfolio advisor with Merril Lynch Bank of America; Derek Canton ’15, account director at OpenAI, founder of Paerpay, and winner of the first Next Big Idea contest; Zak Dutton, executive director of Auxilium; John Merrill, capital markets at Kelleher & Sadowsky, former president Fidelity Bank and regional president of Santander and Fleet Bank; and Craig Bovaird ’77, the former president of Built-Rite Tool & Die and one of the competition’s original judges. Tibrewal, Canton, and Bovaird are also Worcester State Foundation board members.
The contest is being revived thanks to a generous endowed gift from founder Robert O’Brien’s son, Brendan O’Brien, and Brendan’s wife Julie Grasso, as well as funding from the Esler Family Foundation.
Coinciding with the annual Celebration of Scholarship and Creativity event, the competition is scheduled for Wednesday, April 22, from 2-4 p.m. It will take place in room 204 in the Gene J. & Julianne DeFeudis Wellness Center, and the entire campus community is welcome to attend.
