Eligibility

Students must be enrolled at FIT as a full time or part time student in an undergraduate (Associates/Bachelor's) or graduate program, and be scheduled to graduate in Fall '25 or Spring '26.

Alumni who graduated in Fall ’24/Spring ’25 and Fall ’23/Spring ’24 are eligible to apply. Pursuing an FIT degree in Fall ’26, at any level, may not be pursued concurrent with the PETE Prize innovation incubator, beginning in Fall ’26. For example, AAS graduates from Fall ’25/Spring ’26 who will be pursuing a bachelor's degree in Fall ’26, are ineligible to apply. Bachelor's graduates from Fall ’25/Spring ’26 beginning a graduate school program in Fall ’26 are also ineligible.

Eligible business concept proposals are for-profit only and focus on the creative industries, promoting FIT's core values of innovation, sustainability and diversity. Start-up business entities are eligible to apply as a for-profit venture if the company has historically generated less than $10,000 in funding and/or revenue.

All non-student employees of the College and their immediate family members are ineligible to participate in the PETE Prize. Current students employed either part-time or otherwise engaged in College conducted projects or programs will share this information on their application, in order that eligibility will be determined.

International students are eligible to apply, provided PETE Prize eligibility requirements are satisfied and all visas and applicable international legal and procedural requirements are in compliance.

Applying as a team

• A team is comprised of 1-3 individuals.
• Each person on the team will complete an application.
• There is a space on the application to notate the name(s) of the team member(s) you may be applying with.
• Students may apply and participate on one team only.
• The team will be selected in full or declined in full. (Ex., if 2 applicants apply to be on a team together and the award evaluation committee determines that 1 of 2 applicants is extremely weak, the team of 2 will be declined.)
• Team member names must be identified in the application to be considered. Applications may be modified to include or exclude team member names through the application deadline. Beyond the application deadline, the application may not be revised.
• Team formations shall be evaluated based on consideration of the skill set of the team in total, inclusive of creative, marketing, digital marketing, finance and business operations.