Teams may include any number of graduate and undergraduate students and must include a Supervising Faculty Member. A team may also involve advisory and support personnel, who can include, for example, high school students, business professionals and community leaders. Each team must designate a Team Leader, who must be a student.

The interdisciplinary nature of this year's program supports the formation of teams of students from business, science, engineering, advertising & marketing, public relations, graphic arts & animation, communication, radio-television-film, journalism and other similar academic disciplines.

In order to achieve an interdisciplinary mix of talent and interests, NMB2008 encourages the formation of teams of students with more than one academic focus. Teaming of students from different universities is acceptable as well.

Only proposals from teams of students enrolled in accredited American institutions of higher education will be considered. Team members do not need to be citizens of the United States.