Beautiful E-Conference Cup

Today was the finale of the E-Conference, a two-day entrepreneurship event at Darden. The afternoon featured the UVA Cup.

Round 1 of this entreprenurial competition was held earlier this fall at six different schools across University of Virginia. Each held its own concept competition; students wrote up a two-page paper about their business concept. Each school's finalists presented a 10-minute PowerPoint explanation. And each school named one winner.

Today, those six winners presented their concepts to the judges. The prize for first place? $20,000 — and an incredible cup. Congratulations to the engineers at the School of Engineering & Applied Science! They did a fantastic job.(Read the press release and watch a slide show.)

I was a bit astonished by the cash. No strings attached. The university takes nothing. It's all in the spirit of making ideas come to life.

But let's talk about the actual UVA Cup. I was blown away by this.

(Photos courtesy of Dan Addison/UVA Office of Public Affairs)


The disc in the middle is suspended by magnets, a technological feat that apparently tapped into UVA's maglev expertise. This trophy will be displayed at the winning school, and the school will get to keep the disc, even after the trophy moves on the following year.



The base is brass. Just stunning.


And the spiral has a quote engraved on it by (who else?) Thomas Jefferson:

"I like the dreams of the future better than the history of the past."

Perfect.