Originated by the Graduate School of Business at The University of Texas at Austin in 1984, the MOOT CORP® program was intended to launch new companies, build entrepreneurship curricula for business education, generate teaching tools and methodologies and expand the role and scope of entrepreneurial studies both nationally and internationally.

The MOOT CORP® competition is considered both the first and longest operating, inter-business school new venture competition in the world.  It has been cited in Business Week as the “Super Bowl of Business Plan Competitions” and in Success Magazine as the “Mother of all Business Plan Competitions”.  Each May the world’s top business schools will participate in this event and will be competing for the top prize of US$ 100,000 and the title of Global Champion.

In 1992, the MOOT CORP® competition evolved into a global program.  The strategy for the global expansion initially entailed inviting the top business schools from regions not already represented.  This resulted in participation from universities in Europe, Asia and Latin America.

The second strategy for global expansion involved licensing the MOOT CORP® name to prestigious universities in Asia, Australia, Europe, Latin America, and Africa, and providing technical assistant so that they could hold regional MOOT CORP® competitions. In 1998 the MOOT CORP® was brought to Asia with the Chinese University of Hong Kong organizing the event.
 

Forty universities now send their teams to Austin to compete in the global MOOT CORP® Competition and many more are eager to participate.  Participants from schools with the top ten entrepreneurship programs are included in the invitation set, along with winners of MOOT CORP® licensed competitions, and winning teams from other new venture competitions.More Information about Global Moot Corp® 2010, please visit www.mootcorp.org

In the early years, the Competition was truly moot. No MBAs launched the venture that was the subject of their business plans. The process was strictly an academic exercise. However, many of the participating MBAs went on to work for or started their own entrepreneurial ventures and became successful entrepreneurs; but they did not "ride the horse" they had written about in their business plans.

But then, a funny thing happened on the way to expansion and globalization. The process ceased to be "moot". MBAs started converting their classroom creations into real-life enterprises. Since 1993, the team winning the annual competition for UT MBAs has moved into the Austin Technology Incubator and launched its venture. Five are still in business, and they range from low-tech to high-tech.