Teams of students from universities all over the world are visiting Virginia Tech this week to celebrate student entrepreneurship and compete in a global business challenge.

VT KnowledgeWorks, a regional group based in the Corporate Research Center promoting entrepreneurship and technology-based businesses, is hosting the weeklong Global Business Concept Challenge.

"What we do at VT KnowledgeWorks is help people start and grow companies," said Jim Flowers, VT Knowledgeworks director. "Someone can come see us with a germ of an idea and we can help them develop that."

The competing students arrived on Aug. 29 and spent several days at Tech hosted by local families. They met with regional technology companies and got to spend time with other Tech students.

"It involves the whole community," Flowers said. "The businesses have put up the money and allowed some shadowing, and the university has provided a lot to this as well, and they're staying in local homes. We're creating a global network in Blacksburg."

On Wednesday, the students traveled to Roanoke to attend a presentation and awards ceremony at the Hotel Roanoke and Conference Center.

The winning team will receive a $25,000 cash prize, and the top two runners-up will receive $2,500.

Competing teams hail from France, United Kingdom, Israel, Mexico, Italy, Uruguay and the U.S. All teams are previous winners of competitions in their home countries.

The students' ideas come from many different fields but are all technology-based.

"All of these people have invented things that can be sold beyond their own borders," Flowers said.

The team from Telecom SudParis University in Paris developed a company idea called Artbeating. The idea is a creative marketplace where art and design students can showcase their talent and network, team member Romain Lauwerier said.

"There's a lot of youth talent and it's very hard to stand out," Lauwerier said. "We promote student skills in different design fields. It's to enable students to stand out and make their mark in the business and start a career."

If the Artbeating team wins the $25,000 prize, Lauwerier said the team would use the money to help promote the company.

Another team competing in the challenge is from Monterey, Mexico. The Mexican team developed Nari-Filter, a product designed to filter dust and chemicals from the nostrils.

"We focused our market on industry but we also think it could work in the commercial side," said Barnado Gamboa Escobar, a team member. "It's useful in mines and construction because there are a lot of people there who work in those areas, and over time they can get sick from breathing in the dust and particles."

If his team wins the first prize, Escobar said it would use the money to start a company to sell the Nari-Filter.

The challenge will be decided Thursday at a formal gala dinner at the Hotel Roanoke, hosted by the NewVa Corridor Technology Council.

The keynote speaker at the gala is David Houle, author of the book "The Shift Age." Houle was also part of the senior executive team that developed MTV, Nickelodeon, VH1 and CNN Headline News.