ITHACA, N.Y. — In partnership with Grow-NY, Cornell University, NYS 4-H, and New York Agriculture in the Classroom, Cornell Cooperative Extension is pleased to share a new youth opportunity to build businesses in New York State.
With the hope of inspiring and investing in the future of food, middle and high school youth are invited to attend and compete in the 2021 Grow-NY competition November 16-17, 2021, in Syracuse, NY. Grow-NY is a business competition where contestants pitch their big idea “Shark Tank” style to a panel of judges focused on food and agriculture innovation. Winning entries receive a $2,000 cash prize to build their business.
Twenty youth will be invited to attend this year’s event and eight will pitch their business idea during the competition to a panel of youth judges with a chance to win a cash prize. A student winner and runner-up will be awarded prizes.
Each of the 20 youth selected to attend the competition, will have their competition registration paid for by Grow-NY and the eight finalists selected to give their pitch on the youth stage will have their competition registration and hotel accommodations paid for by Grow-NY.
New York state youth ages 12-18 enrolled in middle or high school are eligible to apply. This includes public, private, and home schools.
Use this provided tool to explore the required questions for submitting your application to pitch an idea. Review the Youth Pitch Application Questions. Youth applying to attend the competition without pitching an idea will only have one question to answer in the application.
Please take special note that you are not able to save your application to complete later. We recommend writing your responses in a Word document and then copying and pasting into the application when you are ready to submit.
Applications are due October 20, 2021, by 5 p.m. EST.
Learn more about the Grow-NY competition on the website.
For questions regarding the youth competition, contact Victoria Giarratano at vlg4@cornell.edu
–Cornell Cooperative Extension
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