CourseRank

May 22, 2012

Tags: Accel Partners , BASES , Kevin Xu , Lightspeed venture partners , Sequoia Capital , Stanford , student entrepreneur , Zappos Silicon Valley’s brightest young minds will vie for $150,000 in rewards as part of a full-day entrepreneurial challenge at Stanford University this Tuesday. The Business Association of Stanford Entrepreneurial Students ( BASES ), the student-run organization behind the event, has birthed a number of successful companies in its fifteen-year history, notably Kiva , CourseRank and Togetherville . BASES is a hotbed of social entrepreneurship, which is the practice of using business and business process to drive social or environmental change. BASES events are typically well-attended by entrepreneurs and investors in search of the next big idea. This year saw an upswing in international interest with 1,000 applications pouring in from around the world. The event is supported by the who’s who of Silicon Valley’s venture capital firms, including Sequoia Capital , Accel Partners and Lightspeed Venture Partners . “We see the BASES Finale as a mecca for entrepreneurship, bringing together the best of Stanford with the best of the valley celebrating the next generation of entrepreneurs,” said Kevin Xu, Chief Branding Officer of the BASES Finale. Described by organizers as a “student fair on steroids”, the BASES finale is split into four funding competitions: the E-Challenge, Social E-Challenge, Product Showcase and Forge Program. The winners will be announced starting at 5pm, following a keynote speech from Sequoia’s Alfred Lin. “Stanford is one of the most entrepreneurial universities in the world and BASES is at its epicenter. Many of the most important technology companies were born out of Stanford — including Cisco, Google, Network Appliance, NVIDIA, PayPal, and Yahoo,” said Lin, the former COO/ CFO of Zappos . “We look forward to partnering with many more of them in the years ahead.” The event takes place from 10:00AM to 7:00PM at the Arrilaga Alumni Center. To view the agenda, click here . To register and secure a free ticket, go to 150kfinale.eventbrite.com . Get more stories like this on Twitter &  Facebook Press Releases