The finals will be held on Wednesday April 4 at 4:30 p.m. during a special presentation of the IMPACT Speaker Series called "Students Who IMPACT" (in LeCraw Auditorium of the Management building). Both the poster showcase and finals are free and open to the public.

Open to all Georgia Tech students and current alumni, the I2S is a competition of ideas where creativity, imagination and technology are applied to solving social issues and sustaining our environment.

Eighteen teams (with a total of 41 participants from multiple Colleges at Tech) are competing for a total of $10,000 in prizes. In addition to First through Third Place, awards include Best Video, Best Poster, People's Choice, two service packages from new partner Hub Atlanta (Most Innovative Idea and Most Market-ready Team), and the new Student Social Courage Award (created in honor of the late Liam Rattray, who competed last year as founder of the ArkFab Project).

More than 25 judges are involved in the competition, representing innovative businesses and social enterprises. A series of workshops leading up to the competition have helped students prepare, and they have received guidance from business-community mentors. The competition is organized by Georgia Tech's Institute for Leadership and Entrepreneurship.

"Growing interest from our students and the community beyond Tech is a clear indicator that I2S fills a niche that is of growing importance," says organizational behavior professor Terry Blum, executive director of ILE. "The competition is both encouraging innovative idea generation for creating social and environmental value and providing resources for moving these ideas to the action stage."

I2S sponsors include Gray Ghost Ventures, HUB Atlanta, and MaRC Sustainable Design & Manufacturing as well as Tech's ILE, College of Management, and the Tedd Munchak Chair in Entrepreneurship.