Breaking Down The Blue Ocean Competition

The Blue Ocean Competition is noted as “The World's Most Prestigious Virtual Pitch Competition For High School Students Around The World.” With just under 10,000 global participants, placing highly is definitely challenging--but not impossible. High school students always ask: what are some strategies to finish in the Top 100? How do I even come up with an idea to pitch? Let's break it down. 

The Competition:

The Blue Ocean Competition is a virtual pitch contest that encourages sustainable thinking and formulating a blue ocean strategy. The goal of the pitch is to innovate a new project or idea that has uncontested market space, explaining the potential benefits and impact it may have on society.

Competing is completely free, with the top 3 winning ideas receiving $1000, $750, and $500 respectively. 

Students are expected to develop a project and create a 5 minute video pitch that they upload to YouTube. After the deadline, judges evaluate the submission based on specific criteria that can be found here.

A pitch template that many students finishing in the top 100 used can be found here. 

Coming Up With An Idea:

Rather than jumping into researching potential ideas, the best way to develop a successful project is by looking at your daily life. While speaking with past winners and placing in the top 100, the best way to come up with an idea is to ask yourself the question: What am I doing in my life that is hurting others or the environment? Most of the time, however, you may not even be aware that you’re doing it. 

A project that was able to place in the top 100 was an idea that was developed around replacing ammonia, a nonrenewable and damaging ingredient in fertilizers, with hair. This was made by a student who loved gardening and, after a bit of research, realized there was a project to be made right under his hands. 

The Blue Ocean Competition Website has tons of articles and inspiring ideas that are useful in finding ways to start developing your own project, implementing a blue ocean strategy in the process. You can find their resources here. 

Finding Success 

Being an international competition with exponential growth and interest year after year, it may be challenging to finish highly without pouring hundreds of hours preparing and researching your project. But this shouldn’t discourage you at all. 

A great way to stand out while developing your project is to carefully edit your video in a compelling and easy-to-understand manner, implementing colorful visuals and speaking slowly for viewers. Many have noticed that the students that tend to do well are the ones that have engaging and well-edited videos. 

No matter where you finish, the Blue Ocean Entrepreneurship Competition is a fantastic way to develop research skills and implement novel ideas to reduce negative impacts on our planet. The competition encourages sustainable thinking, and will help promote a positive impact that will benefit generations to come. One pitch at a time. 

Looking for other entrepreneurship-oriented activities just like this? Check out the extracurricular tab!