504ward Business Competion Launches — $100,000 Grant Prize

The 504Ward was announced this week by Idea Village. It’s a business plan competition with a $100,000 grant to the winning business along with services by many other New Orleans area firms.

The competition is designed to attract new start-ups to New Orleans or to seed local start-ups with the expressed intent of providing good jobs for 23–35 year old’s in the city.

At the competition launch on Thursday night at Tipitina’s, representatives from Google were on hand to throw their support behind the competition. They included a promise to promote the compeition on YouTube which potentially will draw quite a bit of attention. An interesting component of the competition is its emphasis on a video component to the submission process. This is a trend that I see continuing to grow, we submitted a video application as part of our TechCrunch50 conference application.

The evening’s highlight was the unveiling of a short film produced by Trumpet and directed by Benjamin Reece promoting the rising to the challenge of entrepreneurship in the new New Orleans. Ben has emerged in the last several months as one of New Orleans’s brightest young talents along with his partner Tung Ly. His short film 50 People 1 Question has drawn attention all over the world, and he directed a inspiring short for the 504ward that you can watch below. You should come see him speak at the next Net2NO meetup. (Who is that guy in the opening shot I wonder.)

http://vimeo.com/moogaloop.swf?clip_id=1808739&server=vimeo.com&show_title=1&show_byline=1&show_portrait=0&color=00ADEF&fullscreen=1
504ward Promotional Film from Benjamin Reece on Vimeo.

I am very excited about the interest and support in the New Orleans start-up community right now, and this is just another example of great things happening. Though the award will likely have a national applicant pool, I really hope that many bright young New Orleanian’s apply for the grant. I feel a sense of pride and a competitive desire to show that this award can be won by a home grown business that will benefit New Orleans, that great businesses don’t just have to locate a satellite office here, but that they can be born here. My personal challenge to local start-ups is that we take this award home ourselves. Let’s make it happen NOLA.

Learn more about the 504ward, read the complete rules, and apply. Applications are due December 4th.