This competition will open student’s mind for entrepreneurship in the energy sector. In the 3rd PES student congress and PES HardTech Summit (IEEE N3XT® Affiliate Event), PES will provide student travel support to 102 students (one student from different PES Student Chapters and universities) from 30 countries across the world.

These students will have the opportunity to make registration in the PES Green Entrepreneur competition 1 month before the IEEE PES HardTech Summit and 3rd PES student congress. The students will divide in teams with 5 people.

All PES GEC (Green Entrepreneur Competition) teams have men and women PES volunteers from different countries. Each team will be represented by women member following the IEEE PES WiP (Women in Power) vision. These teams will have the goal to motivate PES student and PES young professionals work without boards to make innovative projects and companies in the same way of globalization. These teams will have to propose new companies (product, technologies, services business or social entrepreneurship) based on the following topics:

a) Renewable energy

b) Energy efficiency

c) Reduction in greenhouse gas emissions

All teams will have submit business plan before the congress. Also, all teams will make pitch presentation (5 min) at PES Green Entrepreneur competition (August 25, 2018). Before the congress, all teams will have online training sessions with follow topics:

Business plan;
Business Model Canvas;
SWOT (Strengths, Weaknesses, Opportunities, Threats) analysis;
Empathy Mapping;
Pitch techniques

The 21st century has enormous challenges for humanity and the engineering field. The PES Green Entrepreneur competition will create a great environment to PES student and PES young professionals work without borders and learn about best entrepreneurship practices to make changes in the world and attend the next world’s energy needs.

Competition eligibility:

All students and YP with registration on 3rd PES student congress.

Agenda:

1) Online training about entrepreneurship

Date: from August 3 to August 20, 2018.

Eligibility: Open to all people (IEEE membership is not mandatory)

All PES student and PES YP members in this competition will prepare their business plan and pitch based on online training sessions with follow topics:

Business plan;
Business Model Canvas;
SWOT (Strengths, Weaknesses, Opportunities, Threats) analysis;
Empathy Mapping;
Pitch techniques.

1A) First online training session

Date: August 5, 2018 (3 pm / GMT time)

Speaker: Muhammad Bilal Javed Ghumman (Founder at SchoolX and 2018 IEEE Entrepreneurship Steering Committee)

Muhammad Bilal Javed Ghumman is a tech entrepreneur, marketer, a sought-after speaker and a coach for the personal and professional development community. Bilal is a ‘Why Guy’ who asks people why they do what they do and helps them discover themselves. Bilal is the founder of SchoolX, an organization for aspiring leaders and entrepreneurs focusing on Leadership, Innovation and Entrepreneurship.

Bilal has been invited to 50+ universities nationally and internationally, has trained thousands of young professionals in Asia & MENA region to be self-sufficient and efficient. In his training career, he has introduced a series of workshops titled “The Why and How Of..” entrepreneurship, effective leadership, self-management, professional and career development.

When it comes to training Mr. Ghumman excels in two things, asking relevant questions and finding the gaps to fill. He believes in helping people discover themselves by giving them a chance to question themselves. Bilal’s speaking style and off the cuff wit is something that leaves his audience entertained, motivated and begging for more.

Bilal serves as the Liaison, Young Professionals Sub-Committee of the Industry Engagement Sub-Committee for the 2018 IEEE Entrepreneurship Steering Committee.

1B) Second online training session

Topic: Customer empathy map

Online Material

An empathy map is a collaborative tool that teams can use to gain a deeper insight into their customers. Much like a user persona, an empathy map can represent a group of users, such as a customer segment. The empathy map was originally created by Dave Gray and has been gaining popularity with the agile community.

The empathy maps are split into 6 quadrants (Says, Thinks, Does, Feels, Pain and Gain), with the user or persona in the middle. Empathy maps provide a glance into who a user is as a whole and are not chronological or sequential.

An empathy mapping exercise takes a customer persona and places them in a real-life situation, often an extreme one to heighten the sense of emotion. Participants are then asked to walk in the persona’s shoes for a moment, think and feel as they do, and write in the details of the experience from their viewpoint on a large printed empathy map canvas.

Introduction video about empathy map

In this video, you can watch a short overview empathy map and how to understand customers in your business.

Empathy map for a restaurant (Examples)

In the next 2 empathy maps, you can see examples for 2 different customer segments in a restaurant business

– Customer segment: young people

– Customer segment: tourist

Empathy map class

In this video, you can understand better all points of empathy map.

1C) Third online training session

Topic: SWOT & TOWS Analysis

After you define your business field and consumer need with empathy map, then you will need search for competitors in the same business field and how you can provide a better service to people choose your business. The SWOT & TOWS analysis can help in this step.

Online Material

What is a SWOT analysis?

S.W.O.T. is an acronym that stands for Strengths, Weaknesses, Opportunities, and Threats. A SWOT analysis is a high-level strategic planning model that helps organizations identify where they’re doing well and where they can improve, both from an internal and external perspective.

SWOT is used in a business context, it helps you to carve a sustainable niche in your market. The point of a SWOT analysis is to help you develop a strong business strategy by making sure you’ve considered all of your business’s strengths and weaknesses, as well as the opportunities and threats it faces in the marketplace.

New businesses should use a SWOT analysis as a part of their planning process. There is no “one size fits all” plan for your business, and thinking about your new business in terms of its unique “SWOTs” will put you on the right track right away, and save you from a lot of headaches later on.

You typically want to conduct a SWOT analysis at the beginning of your strategic planning process or during a strategy refresh. Your entire leadership team should be heavily involved because they should have the ability to look across your organization and offer insight into your competitive environment and/or business landscape. When the leadership team offers appropriate recommendations regarding your strengths, weaknesses, opportunities, and threats, you will end up with a SWOT analysis that has the credibility to be used constructively in the strategic planning process.

SWOT analysis aims to identify the key internal and external factors seen as important to achieving an objective. SWOT analysis groups key pieces of information into two main categories:

Internal factors — the strengths and weaknesses internal to the organization
External factors — the opportunities and threats presented by the environment external to the organization

Conducting a SWOT analysis is a powerful way to evaluate your company or project.

In this video, you can watch a short overview of SWOT analysis with examples.

What is a TOWS analysis?

TOWS Analysis is a variant of the classic business tool, SWOT Analysis. TOWS is acronyms for different arrangements of the words Strengths, Weaknesses, Opportunities and Threats.

A TOWS is a commonly used strategic planning tool and can add real value to an organization, helping to take strategic planning one step further. TOWS examines a company’s external opportunities and threats and compares them to the firm’s strengths and weaknesses. This analysis forms the basis to develop TOWS strategies and to form actionable tactics.

The rationale of a TOWS analysis is to help you get a better understanding of the strategic choices available and what options could you pursue. You can lay out what options do you have, to maximize strengths to capitalize on opportunities, while minimizing weaknesses to avoid threats.

What are the TOWS Strategies?

TOWS strategies fall into four categories:

Strengths-Opportunities: Develop plans that leverage the strengths of the company to capitalize on opportunities. A few ideas could be to diversify into new markets, improve the quality of products and reduce the costs of top-selling products.

Weaknesses-Opportunities: After identifying weaknesses, focus on ways to resolve them in a goal to take advantage of opportunities. This might require finding new and cheaper suppliers, developing more aggressive marketing campaigns and reviewing operational processes to reduce costs.

Strengths-Threats: Use the company’s strengths to counter external threats. If the company has a strong research and development department, for example, start new product development projects to enter different markets.

Weaknesses-Threats: Find ways to minimize weaknesses and counter threats. This could involve closing out poor-selling products, terminating under-performing employees and developing more aggressive selling techniques.

In this video, you can watch a short overview of SWOT and TOWS analysis with examples.

How do you can conduct a SWOT Analysis?

Possible questions you could ask to identify potential strengths(Internal factor / Positive influence)

What do your customers love about your company or product(s)?
What does your company do better than other companies in your industry?
What are your most positive brand attributes?
What’s your unique selling proposition?
What resources do you have at your disposal that your competitors do not?
What are we best at?
What intellectual property do we own that can help us with this objective?
What specific skills does the current workforce have that can contribute to this objective?
What financial resources do we have for reaching this objective?
What connections and alliances do we have?
What is our bargaining power with both suppliers and intermediaries?

Possible questions you could ask to identify potential opportunities (External factor / Positive influence)

What changes in the external environment can we exploit?
What weaknesses of our competitors can we use to our advantage?
What new might technology become available to us?
What new markets might be opening to us?
How can we improve our sales/customer onboarding/customer support processes?
What kind of messaging resonates with our customers?
How can we further engage our most vocal brand advocates?
Are we allocating departmental resources effectively?
Is there budget, tools, or other resources that we’re not leveraging to full capacity?
Which advertising channels exceeded our expectations – and why?

Possible questions you could ask to identify potential weaknesses (Internal factor / Negative influence)

What are we worst at doing?
Is our intellectual property outdated?
What training does our workforce lack?
What is our financial position?
What connections and alliances should we have, but don’t?
What do your customers dislike about your company or product(s)?
What problems or complaints are often mentioned in your negative reviews?
Why do your customers cancel or churn?
What could your company do better?
What are your most negative brand attributes?
What are the biggest obstacles/challenges in your current sales funnel?
What resources do your competitors have that you do not?

Possible questions you could ask to identify potential threats (External factors / Negative influence)

What might our competitors be able to do to hurt us?
What new legislation might damage our interests?
What social changes might threaten us?
How will the economic cycle affect us?

2) Documentation for the IEEE PES Green Entrepreneur competition

Date: August 24, 2018 (11:59 pm / GMT-3) – Deadline

Eligibility: All competition team members.

Presentation template:

Link for the PES GEC presentation template

Each team should submit a ppt presentation (minimum 8 slides and maximum 15 slides) with the following points:

1) Project name and team members (country)

2) I am an entrepreneur
– Main points of team members’ biography

3) Opportunity
– Describe the size of the market and major difficulties in the area of your new business

4) Solution and business model

– Describe the business model
– Problem
– Solution
– Customers
– Benefits
– Monetization

5) Green impact, innovation and technology of the new business

Describe the green impact, innovation and technology of your business on society in one of the themes of the competition:

– Renewable energy
– Energy efficiency
– Reducing emissions of greenhouse gases

6) Marketplace, benefits for customer opportunities

– Describe whether the prototype exists and preliminary results (It is not mandatory)

– Describe the market size, customer benefits and opportunities

7) Initial investment

– Budget to start your business

8) Financial planning

– Market demand considerations
– Project financial return

3) Pitch presentation for the IEEE PES Green Entrepreneur competition

Date: August 25, 2018

Time: 1:30 pm – 3:00 pm

Eligibility: All competition team members.

All teams will make a pitch presentation (5 min) for PES competition judges.

4) Competition award ceremony

Date: August 26, 2018

Time: 8:00 pm – 11:00 pm

PES YP (Young Professionals) will hold PES competition award ceremony as part of the gala dinner congress. So, PES YP will provide plaques for the best teams and PES YP competition certificate attendance for all PES team members in the IEEE PES Green Entrepreneur competition.

More information about IEEE PES YP:

http://site.ieee.org/pes-yp/

5) Competition Teams

All PES GEC (Green Entrepreneur Competition) teams have men and women PES volunteers. Each team will be represented by women member following the IEEE PES WiP (Women in Power) vision.

PES Women in Power fosters a more diverse leadership by supporting the career advancement, networking and education of women in the energy industry. The PES WiP goal is not to simply increase the number of women in the power industry but to promote women into leadership positions as well.