Moonshot is an ideation-focused pitch challenge that asks students to think big ––beyond the classroom–– and pitch an idea that solves a real-world problem in 2 minutes or less!

Any active (part-time or full-time) Purdue undergraduate or graduate student from any college/department is eligible to participate.

Any idea can be submitted for the challenge! Your team, however, will have to decide which category your idea falls within:

• Earth (Social Ideas)
  • Ideas primarily focused on addressing socio-economic needs & challenges.
• Orbit (Business Ideas)
  • Ideas primarily focused on launching a company
  • This category focuses on the exchange of products, services, or information between businesses, or between businesses and customers.
• Moonshot (Dent in the Universe)
  • Ideas primarily focused on solving a seemingly impossible problem.
  • This category focuses on radical solutions, disruptive technology, or futuristic technology.

You or your team will create a video describing your idea in 2 minutes (firm limit) or less.

Your video submission should describe the problem you are solving, who you are solving the problem for, and how your idea solves that problem. The video can be a presentation, voiceover, or recorded pitch.

You do not need to have every technical aspect of the product/technology figured out – nor do you need to have a business model fully developed.

Each participant will need to complete the form above, additionally, the team lead will also need to provide the team’s official idea description and video link within their submission form.

*Please note: There only needs to be one application per team. 

You will need to paste a link to your video in the submission form. Your video should be hosted on a platform such as YouTube or Vimeo.

Please be sure the video is public/unlisted and NOT private. If the video is set to private viewing only, our judges will not be able to access it, and your submission will not be accepted.

Please review the dates above under ‘Key Dates’. Submissions are accepted beginning 12:00 am EST, and close at 11:59 pm EST on the last day of the submission window. No late submissions will be accepted.

No –edits to the submission form cannot be made once submitted.

A group of judges will view and score each submission. The top 15 submissions, as scored by the external judges, will be chosen as finalists. Finalists will be announced and notified. 

The top 15 finalists will each have 2 minutes to pitch their idea to a separate panel of judges (these judges will not view the previous submission and will have no context of the idea). Judges will then have 3 minutes of Q&A with each team.

After all teams have presented, the judges will deliberate for roughly 30 minutes (while finalists and the audience enjoy food and drinks!). The top 3 winners and 2 additional awards will then be announced that same evening.

The top 3 winners and 2 additional awards will share a prize pool of $5,500. The prize breakdown is as follows:

• 1^st place: Earth Category– $1,500
• 1^st place: Orbit Category – $1,500
• 1^st place: Moonshot Category – $1,500
• Crowd Favorite – $500
• Best Pitch – $500.

Yes! There will be a workshop. More information to come.