NRSCEL- IIMB Announces Winners
of the Next Big Idea 2012
Training and Business Plan
Competition Catalyzes the Development of Entrepreneurship in India
Bangalore, July 05, 2012: The Nadathur S Raghavan Centre for
Entrepreneurial Learning (NSRCEL) at the Indian Institute of Management
Bangalore (IIMB) yesterday announced the winners of Next Big Idea 2012, an
integrated entrepreneur training and business plan competition. The Next Big
Idea is sponsored by the National Science & Technology Entrepreneurship
Development Board (NSTEDB) under the aegis of the Department of Science &
Technology, Government of India as well as Intel.
The winning teams of the NBI 2012 are:
Winners: Greenway Grameen Infra comprising of Ms Neha Juneja and Mr. Ankit
Mathur, whose submission relating to cost and energy efficient bio-mass fired
stoves for rural use won the first position, which includes a cash award of INR
150,000 and a certificate. The team will also participate in the Global
Challenge to be held in Berkeley in November 2012, all expenses covered by the
generous grant from Intel and DST.
Runner-Up: Link Smart, comprising of Mr. Shirish Goyal and Mr. Ashish Anand, whose
idea of delivering scalable solutions for mass markets in the domain of
security with an emphasis on insider threat protection captured the second
position, which includes a cash award of INR 100,000 and a certificate. The
team will also participate in the Global Challenge.
Third Place: Red Force Labs comprising of Mr. Mohan Sundaram and Mr. Yash K S,
bagged the third position, which includes a cash award of INR 75,000 and a
certificate. Red Force Labs is an online security research and product company
focused on bringing to market solutions that help verify identities and
transactions reliably from any computing device, be it owned or shared.
The winning teams received their awards from Mr. N S Raghavan, Co-Founder
of Infosys and Member of the NSRCEL Academic Committee.
In addition, the top five teams, including the winners will receive
Mentoring Support from NSRCEL, get access to possible incubation at NRSCEL, and
become part of the NSRCEL Ecosystem
According to Professor Pankaj Chandra, Director, IIM Bangalore, “The
winners of the NBI 2012 were arrived at from a starting pool of over 5000 ideas
from the Champion of Champion category and 300-plus from the Open Challenge
segment. These initial entries were shortlisted to around 160 ideas. In the
next stage this was reduced to 30 semi-finalists. Over the course of the last
three days, an eminent panel of judges brought this down to 10 and then finally
arrived at the top three winning ideas.”
Speaking on the sidelines of the NBI 2012 Grand Final event, Mr. Harkesh
Mittal, Secretary of the National Science and Technology Development
Entrepreneurship Board, Department of Science & Technology, Government of
India, said, “We are delighted with the results of this year’s competition. The
objective of The Next Big Idea is to build capacity in academic institutions
that conduct business plan competitions thereby helping in bettering the
quality of business ideas originated from there. We believe this objective has
been achieved.”
Dr. Anjan Ghosh, Regional Director, Corporate Affairs (Asia-Pacific),
Intel stated, “Next Big Idea is a good example of Intel’s strong commitment in
promoting entrepreneurship across the globe.
The differentiating factor of the NBI-IIMB programme is the fact that
the shortlisted teams received structured training and inputs to help them
develop their ideas and present them to the judges in a superior manner. Our
congratulations to all the teams.”
The panel of judges in the final rounds were M/s Anil Valluri,,
Bikramjit Sarma, B V Jagadeesh, Professor Chirantan Chatterjee, Mahendran
Balachandran, Nagaraja Prakasam, Parag Dhol, Professor Ramesh Venkateswaran,
Soumil Majumdar,
Professor Venky Panchapagesan and Vipul Parekh.
The Next Big Idea aims to encourage innovation and create a structured business
plan process for leading academic institutions across the country so that the
innovative ideas born through at institutions are taken forward to become real
businesses, The programme also aims to create a platform where any individual
or team can showcase their innovative ideas and seek mentoring, access to
incubation and angel funds to help them create a real business.
About NSRCEL
The Centre for
Entrepreneurial Studies was set up by IIMB in 1994 with a grant from Canara
Bank to provide learning and knowledge resources to Small & Medium
Enterprises (SMEs), and to offer courses on Entrepreneurship and conduct
research in related areas. A generous endowment from Mr. Nadathur S Raghavan,
former Joint Managing Director of Infosys Technologies Ltd in October 1999
provided the impetus for further growth of the Centre. Now known as the
Nadathur S Raghavan Centre for Entrepreneurial Learning, the Centre aims to be
a world-class Centre of Excellence for seeding, nurturing and promoting
entrepreneurship. The activities of NSRCEL are varied, and encompass teaching,
research, short-term programmes, seminar/panel discussions, incubation and
other activities to support development of entrepreneurship and entrepreneurs.
About IIMB
Established in
1972, the Indian Institute of Management Bangalore (IIMB) today offers a range
of post-graduate and doctoral level courses as well as executive education
programmes. IIMB Centres of Excellence are engaged in adding value to their
communities in the areas of Public
Policy, Capital Markets & Financial Management, Corporate Governance, Entrepreneurship, Public Policy, Software and
Supply Chain Management, to name a few. In June 2010 IIMB obtained the European
Quality Improvement System (EQUIS) accreditation awarded by the European
Foundation for Management Development (EFMD). With a faculty body from amongst
the best universities worldwide, IIMB is a leader in the area of management
research, education and consulting.
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