Randolph-Macon College will host the competition at Birdsong Hall . Two student teams from R-MC also will pitch their business ideas to the judges for a smaller prize.

“This is an awesome opportunity for Randolph-Macon College to partner with the Dominion Resources Innovation Center,” said Dontrese Brown, executive director of The Edge Career Development Program at R-MC. “It exposes our students to a platform to express and share their liberal arts education as critical thinkers, innovators and effective transformational leaders within our communities.”

While the pitch competition is described as being for technology startups, Costanzo said it is open to businesses from different industries, though the use of technology is a key element.

“When we say technology, we mean they have a core technology they are building upon that would allow them to scale the company,” he said. “We have kept it slightly ambiguous just because we don’t want to discourage companies from applying. We want to cast a wide net.”

Startup businesses that want to apply must be incorporated and must have at least one full-time employee.

They cannot have been created before 2015, and they cannot have raised more than $1 million in funding from combined sources.