About this event
Innovation Plan (event code EIP) is for one to three chapter members who have spotted a market opportunity and want to pitch a new business, product or service to fill it. Any type of idea qualifies. It is the lightest of DECA's entrepreneurship events: there is no 20-page report, just a concept pitch deck and the presentation. The deck follows a fixed outline: overview, business opportunity (the need or problem, its root causes, scope and urgency), customer segments, unique value proposition, solution (key features and why the idea is feasible), conclusion, bibliography and optional appendix. You present as the entrepreneurs; the judge plays a venture capitalist deciding whether the concept is viable enough to explore further. The pitch deck is capped at 20 slides (appendix included), in 16:9 format, numbered from the title slide, following the published outline with every section titled, and the signed Statement of Assurances is submitted separately; penalty points come off for formatting violations. ICDC qualifiers upload the deck through DECA's online submission system in the weeks before the conference (DECA posts each year's window on its ICDC page; the 2026 window ran March 25 to April 8) and the chapter advisor must log in to verify it. The presentation is up to 15 minutes including the judge's questions, every team member must take part, only hand-carried visual aids are allowed, and the single presentation evaluation (100 points) is the whole score.
What judges score
What judges score
Study resources
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