Calling all College Students: This Company Rewards Great Business Ideas with $7K and a Trip to London

Who says you can’t make a global impact as a student? Not Unilever.

The company’s annual UNIGAME competition celebrates the most innovative ideas out there. Once a year, undergraduate and graduate students team up to solve a real-world business problem and showcase their solutions in a three-minute online video.

Oh, and you could win $7,000 and a trip to London.

Intrigued? We hope so! Here’s everything you need to know to start planning the next great business idea.

Who can enter?

You just need to be over 18 and a college/university student going to school in the US or Canada. And you’ll need to find two other student innovators to make a complete team. All college majors are welcome to compete, and teams can be from the same school or different schools. All students in a group do not need to be in the same grade.

How is the contest run?

Ready to roll up your sleeves and get to work? This year’s prompt is “Ideas for a Sustainable Future.”

In your team of three, come up with a plan for how you’d solve this year’s challenge. Then, brush up on your film skills, because you’ll need to turn your innovative idea into a three-minute video. When it’s ready to share, go to the UNIGAME contest page and click “Join 2018 UNIGAME.”

Submissions will be accepted November 27th. Voting starts on November 28th and will be open until December 11th.

When voting opens, encourage your family, friends, and classmates to vote for your idea. Entries will also be evaluated by a UNIGAME committee of judges, including senior leaders from Unilever North America. The top entries from each category will head to Unilever’s office in Englewood Cliffs, New Jersey to compete in the final round.

If my team wins, what do we get?

A lot of things, actually. All of the top 10 teams get an all-expenses-paid trip to New York City. First-place winners (in teams of three) will get $7,000 and the chance to interview for Unilever’s coveted internship program, or the Future Leaders Program if you’re a graduating senior.

You’ll also get the chance to represent North America and compete against winners around the world in the Unilever Future Leaders’ League Global Business Competition in London. Win there, and you go on to represent Unilever at One Young World, a global forum for young leaders, which is held in a different country every year (this year’s location is Bogota, Columbia).  Second-place winners get $5,000 and third-place winners get $3,000.

Need some inspiration? Check out last year’s US and Canada first-place winning teams (note that there will be one winner for both the US and Canada this year).

US Winner:

Canada Winner: 

Head over to the UNIGAME page for more information and to submit your entry.

And to check out open positions at Unilever, click here.