Stanford's 2009 Global Innovation Tournament Announced!

Dear Organizers and Participants in the Global Innovation Tournament:

We are pleased to announce the global winners of the competition! After an elaborate judging process during the last two weeks, a prestigious panel of experts from all over the world has selected 22 videos for global recognition from among nearly 1,000 entries in 31 countries. Judges included Stanford University representatives, faculty from other universities, venture capitalists, entrepreneurs and senior executives from companies such as Intuit, Deloitte, and Logitech.

You should know that the judges spent a considerable amount of time watching, analyzing, and discussing each entry. They were very impressed by the range of approaches and ideas behind the submissions. The judges found it very difficult to narrow the list of winners, and there are teams who didn’t win but who should still be exceedingly proud of their projects. The judges selected 300 candidates for global judging, 100 semi-finalists and 39 finalists, before deciding on the 22 winners.

For each entry, the judges evaluated innovation and novelty of the idea; how fun it was; creativity of both the approach to the idea and the presentation itself; whether the team implemented the idea in some way and had impact; and how clear and compelling the presentation content was. In some cases, the judges rewarded teams with less-than-practical ideas that were particularly creative or presented in an exceptionally entertaining manner.

Global winners will receive recognition on the tournament website and a certificate of achievement from the Stanford Technology Ventures Program. A news release encouraging members of the media to view the winning entries will be issued shortly.

You can see the list of winners here: http://www.unleashingideas.org/tournament/winners

Thank you again to our generous global sponsor, Intuit Inc.!

We very much appreciate your enthusiastic participation in the competition. We will soon send you a brief survey to get your feedback and any testimonials about what the experience meant to you.

Thank you so much for being involved!

Theresa Lina Stevens

Stanford Technology Ventures Program

Stanford University

The Global winner:

And the sole winner from Malaysia: