IIT Bombay helps entrepreneurship – Popularly known as Eureka, the Cell Business plan competition by hosted by IIT Bombay, will provide a platform to potential ideas and early stage start-ups.
By facilitating easy interaction between budding entrepreneurs, mentors and angel investors, IIT Mumbai’s Entrepreneurship Cell (E-Cell) has served as an incubation centre for many entrepreneurial ventures.
Popularly known as Eureka, the Cell Business plan competition by hosted by IIT Bombay, will provide a platform to potential ideas and early stage start-ups.
Eureka aims to bridge the gap between ideas and the realization of an enterprise. Also recognized as Asia’s largest Business Plan Competition by CNN and Thomson Reuters, Eureka is supported by organizations like Mumbai Angels, IAN, TiE etc., that makes it a networking hub for aspiring entrepreneurs, mentors, and investors.
Eureka! was launched in 1999, when the word entrepreneurship was still a term unheard of. Over the past decade, the entrepreneurship industry has seen an exponential change, as big as people (qualified or not) opting for entrepreneurship, instead of a nine to five corporate job.
Last year the E-cell at IIT Bombay received 6000 entries and for the first time in fourteen years had international teams participating. “As the competition aims to bridge gap between ideas and the realization of an enterprise, early stage start-ups will be able to evaluate their business plan in the risk-free environment of a competition,” quoted Sagar Sheth, Media manager, E-cell, IIT Bombay.
The competition is divided into two tracks, namely, business and social. The winners will be awarded a cash prize of Rs 5 lakhs, and Rs 1 lakh respectively. There are also other prizes to encourage entrepreneurs to take part in the competition, such as, Technology and Sustainable Development award, with a cash prize of Rs 3 lakhs, the Eureka Youth award of Rs 1 lakh etc.
The event can be considered as a great booster for entrepreneurship industry in India. As ideas are easier said than done, the process of realizing an idea and working on it, needs a deeper understanding of the industry concerned, and a proper training to cope with failures.
