Columbus State University’s Turner College of Business has announced plans for its fifth annual Business Plan Competition, offering prize money totaling $9,000 for first, second, and third place winners.

Anyone planning to start a new business in the Chattahoochee area, including CSU students, high school students, and residents of the region are eligible to compete by submitting a comprehensive business plan together with an executive summary in the spring.

This is the first year the competition is open to the public. “We wanted to be inclusive as we move forward, so we decided to reach out to the community,” said competition organizer Kirk Heriot, CSU’s Ray and Evelyn Crowley Distinguished Chair of Entrepreneurship. “The participants must be starting a new business, but otherwise there are no other restrictions.”

The winner of the 2014 Business Plan Competition and recipient of $5,000 was Olga Cajaichin, an exchange student from Moldova, who at the time was attending CSU through the Georgia Rotary Student Program. Cajaichinimpressed the business plan competition judges with her 60-page business plan for Signature Services, LLC, a personalized matchmaking agency in Hungary. 

Faculty from the Turner College of Business will host a workshop Thursday, Oct. 9, 2014 at 12:30 p.m. at CSU’s Center for Commerce and Technology (Room 306) to help teach participants about the process and the content of a well-written business plan. Additional workshops will be held in both the fall and spring semesters. For more information, visit http://business.columbusstate.edu/businessplan/.

Heriot launched the annual Business Plan Competition in 2010. The competition aims to promote entrepreneurship and development of startups, build bridges between the university and the Columbus area, and encourage commercialization of promising ideas. Interested persons should contact Heriot at [email protected]or visit http://business.columbusstate.edu/businessplan/ for more information.