The University of Delaware’s Horn Program in Entrepreneurship has announced that 11 teams from the virtual track have advanced to the semifinal round of the Diamond Challenge, an entrepreneurship competition for high school students.  

The Business Concept semifinalists are AcoustiGLASS (Ohio), Convertible Shoe (Texas), Plasticycle (Georgia), Potentia: Fuel your Fire (Rune, India) and Recup (Ottawa, Canada).

Semifinalists from the Social Venture track are CommunityLinks (New York), Dilishakel (Diligan, Armenia), DonArt (Diligan, Armenia), STEP (Muang, Thailand), TeensGive.org (New York) and Volutu (California).

“This is truly what gets me most excited about our semifinal and final rounds;” said Julie Frieswyk, manager of youth programs at the Horn Program. “Bringing together young people from all over the world to learn just how much they have in common and that their opportunities for the future may be intertwined.

This year the competition welcomed a record-breaking 716 teams. Of these teams, 371 represented the United States, coming from 25 different states, while 345 teams were international, coming from 36 different countries.

These teams, made up solely of high school students, submitted written concepts as well as a five-minute pitch for a business or social venture. These virtual submissions were then evaluated by a panel of judges and selected to move on to the next round where they will be joined by live track semifinalists, who presented their pitches at a live pitch location.

The semifinal round of the Diamond Challenge will take place on April 6 at the University of Delaware and will be followed by the final round on April 7 during the Youth Entrepreneurship Summit (YES!). Top teams will win awards from a prize pool of $100,000.

The Diamond Challenge has reached more than 1,500 students and 155 schools around the world since it was created in 2012 by the Horn Program in Entrepreneurship. The Diamond Challenge has been ranked one of the top 29 best international business plan competitions by AlphaGamma.

Capital One supports this program as part of its Future Edge initiative, a five-year $150 million initiative designed to help people get the skills they need to be competitive in this digital economy. The Diamond Challenge is one program in the Paul and Linda McConnell Youth Entrepreneurship Education Initiative.

About the Horn Program in Entrepreneurship

The Horn Program in Entrepreneurship ignites imaginations and empowers world changers through educational offerings that emphasize experiential learning, evidence-based entrepreneurship and active engagement with entrepreneurs and other members of the broader entrepreneurial ecosystem.

Through participation in Horn Program offerings, students gain the knowledge, skills, personal capacities, experiences, connections and access to resources needed to successfully manifest innovation and thrive in the rapidly changing world.