About Next Cool Idea

The NCI Organizing Team, comprised of 6 members of the Rice EMBA Class of 2012, is organizing an intense 3-day workshop to develop ideas from conception to business planning under the guidance of an internationally renowned facilitator.

Mission Statement

The mission of the Next Cool Idea Weekend (IdeaLab) is to provide participants with a platform to generate and validate business ideas, and to develop core

components of a business plan. The weekend will also provide the emerging entrepreneurs with access to a network of local and national business entrepreneurs.

History

Modeled after UT’s 3 Day Startup program, the ‘Next Cool Idea’ program aims to start up at least one or more businesses over the course of a single weekend during the summer period each year. We invite 75 EMBAs, PMBAs, Full Time MBAs, Alumni, and students from the College of Engineering with a wide range of backgrounds, that represent different industries and functions, and encourage them to pitch different start up ideas back and forth until four clear ideas emerge. Then, we divide them into teams to begin the preliminary business planning steps necessary to build a company.