A statewide student competition to propose the infrastructure New Mexico needs next, backed by a real financial model. Choose a project based on your interests, model the returns, and present to a panel of judges from J2 Ventures, the New Mexico State Investment Council, and more.
Registering your interest takes a minute and puts you on the list for deadlines, updates, and the kickoff. No pressure to fully commit right now - just log your interest first!
Student teams propose a real infrastructure project sited in New Mexico: energy, water, transportation, internet, or any asset communities depend on. The first round is short: you submit a two-page brief written in plain language, plus a financial model that shows the economics and returns.
The competition runs in two rounds. Every submission is screened on the written materials to select the top five finalists, who present live in Albuquerque to a panel drawn from state government, infrastructure investing, and economic development. Finalists build on the seven-page sample deck for the live round.
You don't need to have any prior finance background. You need a credible idea, a clear explanation, and a model you can defend. Every template is provided as a starting point: a fill-in-the-box two-pager, a general model that works for any infrastructure asset, and a full sample deck for reference.
The definition of infrastructure here is broad. If it's a physical or digital asset a community relies on, and it can be financed, it qualifies.
Solar, wind, batteries, microgrids, rural electrification, and grid upgrades, including power for communities the grid reaches last.
Drinking water, wastewater, irrigation, reuse, and watershed projects in a state where water is scarce.
Roads, bridges, transit, freight and logistics, and EV charging that connect dispersed communities.
Broadband and fiber, cell towers, and the equipment that gets rural homes, schools, and businesses online.
Housing-related infrastructure, warehouses, cold storage for farms, and community or industrial buildings.
Wildfire prevention, flood protection, and projects that help NM communities withstand extreme weather.
The key dates, from the campus launch to the live final in Albuquerque.
In-person launch with the Lobo Investment Club. J2 presents a live case study and walks the templates.
Submit your two-page brief and financial model. These are the only materials judges see in screening.
Judges score every submission against the Round 1 rubric. The five highest advance.
Finalists are announced and briefed on the live round, format, and what to prepare.
Finalists present to the panel of SIC, NM EDD, and J2, and take questions. Winners are announced the same day.
Anchored by the University of New Mexico & the Lobo Investment Club · Live final hosted by Dean Chircu
A two-page brief and a financial model make up the whole first-round submission. Both are quick to start and straightforward to complete.
Working templates, the sample deck, and the scoring sheets and rubrics the judges use. Start from the two-pager and the model, and use the rubrics to check your work before you submit.
The fill-in-the-box first-round template: eight short boxes plus a pre-submit checklist, written in plain language so any student can complete it.
Pick your project type from a dropdown and the units relabel. You type only the blue cells; revenue, costs, financing, and returns calculate themselves.
A complete seven-page sample deck for a fictional solar-storage microgrid, showing the structure and quality finalists build toward for the live round.
The fillable written-round scorecard judges complete for each team. It scores the brief and model out of 100, with a comments field.
The fillable live-final scorecard covering deck, delivery, Q&A, and the carried-forward Round 1 score, totaling out of 100.
All files download directly from this page, no sign-in required.
The sample deck and model are illustrative; replace every figure with your own researched assumptions.
Each criterion is scored 1–5, then weighted to a total out of 100. Round 1 screens the written work; Round 2 adds live delivery and carries the written score forward.
A senior official representing the state's economic and fiscal priorities.
An infrastructure investor evaluating each project as a real opportunity.
A member of the SIC investment team assessing returns and structure.
An EDD leader weighing local jobs, dollars, and statewide impact.
The 1–5 anchors for every criterion are laid out in two one-page references. Download them to see how the brief, model, deck, and live pitch are scored, and to score yourself before you submit.
Awarded to the top three finalists at the live final in Albuquerque, sponsored by J2 Ventures.
The strongest overall project across the written and live rounds.
The runner-up, with a strong brief, model, and live pitch.
Third among the five live finalists.
This is a case-study exercise. Projects are proposals, not funded ventures: the prize money above is the only financial award, and entering does not come with any additional financing, investment, or commitment to build. Winning teams take home the prize, not project funding.
No. The financial model is built so you describe your project in plain physical terms, such as how big it is, how much it's used, and what it charges, and the returns calculate from there. The two-pager and the model both use plain language, and the sample deck shows what a strong submission looks like.
Two things: the two-page brief and the financial model. That's the entire first-round submission. The seven-page deck is a reference and a quality bar for the live round; finalists build toward it, but it is not required in Round 1.
It must be a credible, plausible project sited in New Mexico, but it does not need to exist yet. Judges evaluate the quality of the idea, the explanation, and the financial reasoning, not whether you've broken ground.
Yes. The templates are a starting point and a quality bar, not a hard requirement. The one firm rule is the two-page limit on the brief. Your model must show assumptions, a revenue build, costs, a capital stack, and returns.
Every submission is scored against the Round 1 rubric on the two-page brief and the model, out of 100. The five teams with the highest average scores across judges advance to the live final.
Finalists present their project to the judging panel in Albuquerque on December 3rd and answer questions. Judges score the live round (the deck plus delivery and Q&A) and carry the Round 1 score forward. Winners are announced the same day.
Light mentorship is fine, but the work must be the team's own. To keep things fair, judges affiliated with competing universities recuse themselves from scoring teams from their own institution.
New Mexico covers a lot of ground with relatively few people spread across it, which is a big part of why infrastructure is such a challenge here. Power lines often run for miles to serve a few hundred homes, water is limited across much of the state, and some rural schools still don't have reliable broadband.
Those gaps are also where a well-designed project can do the most good. The places that get connected last tend to benefit the most from new infrastructure, whether that shows up as better reliability, local jobs, or money that stays in the community.
There's also a fair amount happening at the state level right now: clean-energy targets, federal infrastructure funding, and an effort to build more capacity within New Mexico itself. Strong submissions make a clear case for how their project fits into that picture. You can build a credible argument from public information alone, such as census data, utility filings, and state energy and transportation plans.
Download the templates, build your project, then submit through the official entry form. If you have questions about eligibility, format, or the model, reach out and we'll help.