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LATEST
NEWS |
| 23rd
September 2010 / Business Standard |
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Entrepreneurial cell at IIM-B starts biz
plan contest
Nadathur S Raghavan Centre for Entrepreneurial Learning (NSRCEL),
at the Indian Institute of Management, Bangalore (IIMB) has
announced the launch of Next Big Idea, a business plan competition.
It is sponsored by the National Science & Technology Entrepreneurship
Development Board (NSTEDB) under the aegis of the Department
of Science & Technology, Government of India and Intel.
“The process of taking the ideas to the next level and
ultimately commercialisation, can be accelerated through provision
of knowledge, expertise and policy support. This industry, academia
and government partnership aims to provide precisely that under
the Next Big Idea programme,” said Harkesh Kumar Mittal,
Adviser & Member Secretary, National Science & Technology
Entrepreneurship Development Board, Department of Science &
Technology, Government of India.
Next Big Idea aims to encourage innovation, create structure
and process for the Business Plan Competitions for leading academic
institutions across the country so that the innovative ideas
born through these competitions are taken forward to become
real businesses, Next Big Idea also aims to create a platform
where any individual or team can post their innovative ideas
and seek mentoring, access to incubation and angel funds to
help them create a real business.
“The need of the hour is not just help speed up venture
creation but also nurture the right ideas which have potential
to become disruptive businesses of tomorrow. This unique public
private partnership under the Next Big ideas programs will provide
potential entrepreneurs not just the opportunity to make their
ideas into reality but will also provide them the opportunity
to work with the ecosystem to make their future business sustainable,”
said a Intel spokesperson.
One more objective of this program is to build capacity in Academic
Institutions that conduct business plan competitions thereby
helping in bettering the quality of business ideas originated
from there. The capacity building through Academic Institutions
include offering financial support to their competition and
conducting a two day fully paid conference at IIM Bangalore
to enable sharing of information ô best practices to conduct
competitions. “Next Big Idea seeks to provide a perfect
opportunity for entrepreneurs to showcase their idea and get
its attractiveness and viability evaluated by experts in an
extremely competitive setting,” asserts K Kumar, Chairperson,
NSRCEL.
The incentives to the 40 winning teams include a chance to be
incubated and raise seed fund upto Rs 50 lakh from NSRCEL, one
week of fully-paid workshop at IIM-Bangalore with intensive
mentoring and an opportunity to interact with VCs; 10 cash prizes
in the range of Rs 25,000 to Rs 1,50,000 and a sponsorship to
participate in University of California, Berkeley Technology
Entrepreneurship Challenge for the top 3 teams.
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