While you congratulate the author because you both believe that business plans aren't the best vehicle for starting a company, he's actually in favor of business plan competitions, not against them. The changes he advocates--such as building a prototype and getting user feedback--are criteria already part of most competitions, however.
College business plan competitions exist to bring awareness of entrepreneurship to an academic setting. A typical judge is either an angel investor, venture capitalist, or successful entrepreneur. Interaction with judges allows both serious and non-serious contestants to improve their idea from round to round, even competition to competition. Among other things, these judges take into account what kind of leg work the entrepreneurs have done to support their entry.
As far as theory versus practice, real-world judges run the show. They are the ones who give feedback and pick winners, not academics.
Since students typically attend college far away from where their chosen industry is based, business plan competitions enable them to pitch their ideas to adults with a lot more experience than they or their professors have.
A large body of entries come from full-time undergraduate students who gain valuable feedback about one or more ideas they've been thinking about for years. The other group of people these competitions attract are PhD students seeking help to convince the college to make their research available for commercial licensing, subsequently founding a startup that licenses this same research the founder created as a student.
College business plan competitions exist to bring awareness of entrepreneurship to an academic setting. A typical judge is either an angel investor, venture capitalist, or successful entrepreneur. Interaction with judges allows both serious and non-serious contestants to improve their idea from round to round, even competition to competition. Among other things, these judges take into account what kind of leg work the entrepreneurs have done to support their entry.
As far as theory versus practice, real-world judges run the show. They are the ones who give feedback and pick winners, not academics.
Since students typically attend college far away from where their chosen industry is based, business plan competitions enable them to pitch their ideas to adults with a lot more experience than they or their professors have.
A large body of entries come from full-time undergraduate students who gain valuable feedback about one or more ideas they've been thinking about for years. The other group of people these competitions attract are PhD students seeking help to convince the college to make their research available for commercial licensing, subsequently founding a startup that licenses this same research the founder created as a student.