Yesterday (March 21, 2009) I attended the final round of Bizcomp.in – organized by SJCE – Science & Technology Entrepreneurs Park (SJCE-STEP). I being an Alumni of Sri Jayachamarajendra College of Engineering (SJCE) look forward to some excuse to visit my alma mater – not that I visit them all the time, it took my 21 years after graduation to spend a good amount of time at my beloved alma mater. You can see few photos here.
Two of my friends, who were judges of Bizcomp, too accompanied me. I had recently reviewed few business plans for iDeas, Megabucks’09 – the Annual Entrepreneurship Festival of IIT Kanpur. I was unable to visit the campus for the final round. So I thought of at least visiting this one (as a non-panelist)
Panelists for the Final Round
A total of 126 business plans were received, of which 8 were shortlisted for the final round. The panelists were
What Attracts The Panel?
The business plan competition should clearly specify what the competition is looking for,
Bizcomp.in Finalists
Bizcomp.in finalists were students from good educational institutions – The teams participated are from premier institutes like IIM’s, IIT’s, IIIT, Tata Institute Social Science, NIT’s, IMT Ghaziabad, Mudra Institute of Communications, Symbiosis Institute and others.
During the presentation, many judges asked the team “Have you worked in the film industry? If not, how can you start off something in that industry directly”. Only later I realized there was no way any of these teams would have worked anywhere as they all were just passing out. I think the judges were not briefed about that fact.
Awards Ceremony
The winners of the competition were,
Two distinguished gentlemen who are were associated with entrepreneurship had many wise words for the audience. It is always interesting to hear real examples, incidents instead of the standard speeches.
Mr. H.K. Mittal, Advisor & Head, National Science & Technology Entrepreneurship Development Board (NSTEDB) gave a very interesting talk. I learnt from Prof M.H. Dhananjaya’s speech the setting up of STEP was initiated by NSTEDB.
Dr. G.K. Jayaram, Director, The Institute of Leadership And Institutional Development (ILID) spoke about how India gives opportunities to bright students who may not be able to afford education. Dr. Jayaram himself came from a very humble background and went all the way to pass out from IIM-A and UC Berkeley.
Conclusion
Fueling entrepreneurship in India is very important. Catching and inspiring entrepreneurs when are young is the best thing to do. At least a zillion of us has been inspired by “team Infosys”. Business plan competitions encourage people to think and present their ideas and by having a good panel of judges (as Bizcomp had) the feedback they give can be very valuable for the participants.
Such business plan competitions are a great way of generating interest amongst smart young minds. At the same time, there shouldn’t be too many. There must be competitions for students and from the real world (the ones that are operational). Someday an independent body could rate these competitions to increase the interest amongst the participants.
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