The Cozad New Venture Competition (CNVC) is designed to encourage students, researchers, and community members to create new sustainable businesses. Teams are invited to create a venture around a topic of their choice.

The competition process offers teams assistance in the form of: mentors to help guide them through the phases of venture creation, workshops to help with idea validation, pitching skills, customer development, and more as well as and courses to enhance their skills and knowledge.

Teams who make it to the final rounds of competition will have the opportunity to meet with venture capitalists, early stage investors and successful entrepreneurs who will serve as judges for the finals round. The judges will determine up to 8 finalist teams that will present their ventures at the finals event. These teams will compete for approximately $100,000 in funding and in-kind prizes. 

The management team must consist of at least one University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign student. Non-students may be members of the management team and participate in planning the venture, but only students may present the plan and answer questions from the judges in the Finals Event. There is no limit to the number of teams that can enter the CNVC. Students can serve on multiple teams.