Investors, Mentors and Judges

About

Competition Details

Timeline

Investors, Mentors and Judges

FAQs

2022 Top 6 Projects

2021 Top 5 Projects

Academic Advisor / Chair Investor-Experts Panel / Head Mentor

  • Professor Rickie A. Moore

    Professor of Entrepreneurship Director, MSc in Global Innovation and Entrepreneurship
    emlyon business school
    France

Judges

During the Final round, an international panel of judges will evaluate a LIVE 10-minute video pitch presentation. Team members will also have a 15 minute Q&A. With our panel of high-caliber and experienced judges, student entrepreneurs will gain significant insight learning the leading factors of executing a successful business idea.

The Investor Experts

investor expert GETTING STARTED GUIDE
INVESTOR EXPERT ADDITIONAL INFO

During Round 1, business experts, Judges, mentors, and academics will be invited to participate as Investors on the Peaqs platform. Investor Experts play the role of investors in a competitive market: they buy and sell shares based on student entrepreneur performance.  Investor Experts can be anyone from entrepreneur practitioners, entrepreneurs-in-residence, to faculty, PhD students, researchers, and even non-African students. This year, Investor Experts will be receiving a unique certificate for their role in this competition, while also being highlighted throughout the process.

Each Investor starts out with 10.000 credits to trade with and each team project starts with a basic valuation of 100 credits. The virtual stock market has been reigned in somewhat compared to a normal stock market, so it doesn’t encourage speculation in the mere dynamics of a stock market. You can only invest once and divest once per project per phase. So, in case you can’t buy/sell it could be because you have exceeded your trading limits and you’ll have to wait for a new phase to open, where you can re-adjust your investments. Investor Experts will be alerted via email when a new phase opens and you can allocate credits again. Investors are asked to review each student team project’s progress during two investment rounds and submit reflections, feedback and any questions they have for the student team.

Each Phase has a set time frame. At the end of each phase, student teams will upload the content requested in that particular phase before the deadline. Once the deadline passes, the investing round begins. After all phases are complete, the top projects with the highest valuation from the stock market and the highest judging rank will advance to the Finals Round. 

It does not take long to invest, and your involvement is crucial to creating that realistic market environment.  The more Investor Experts, the better!

Team Mentors

This year, teams are required to have a mentor. A team mentor’s primary role is to comment and provide guidance on their designated team project on the Peaqs platform. This candidate should be within the academic community and can be mentors for more than one team. Mentors will work with their respective student team throughout the five phases within Round 1. Each phase allows for investor feedback in addition to your feedback as a mentor. Mentors are advised to review investor feedback with their student team in each phase. 

The Top 4 student teams will pitch LIVE to a panel of international judges from business, academia and civil society. 

Should their student team advance to the finals round, the mentor should work with their team to prepare a pitch presentation that will be delivered LIVE to the panel of judges. After each presentation, students should be prepared to answer questions during a 15 minute Q&A period.

Please Note: Mentors cannot be other students, but can be previously graduated students, faculty members, researchers, practitioners, and/or entrepreneurs.