Nagpur: The Entrepreneurship Cell of IIT Kharagpur and IBM have organised Empresario 2017 in association with the prestigious International Business Model Competition (IBMC) which is co-hosted by Stanford, Harvard and Brigham University. The best entries in all categories will get an opportunity to participate directly in the semi-final rounds of IBMC 2017, which will be conducted abroad. The prizes and services for the winners as per last year are worth Rs 25 lakh.
The shortlisted entries are provided help in terms of mentorship and the winners also get a much sought after chance to pitch their ideas before India’s biggest VCs and investors. Empresario participants are mentored and supported by organisations like TiE, NEN (National Entrepreneurship Network) etc. Startup Services like legal advice, taxation, financial, technical aspects of running a startup, co-working space, HR needs, incubation opportunities, etc. are provided.
Entrepreneurship Cell, IIT Kharagpur is a student organisation established with the aim of fostering the spirit of entrepreneurship among college students in India. It is one of the most successful entrepreneurial organisations in the country with over 50 start-ups incubated within 8 years of its inception. The organisation is playing a vital role in developing the upcoming startups into successful companies by taking a great initiation of conducting flagship competition namely Empresario, the annual and India’s only Global Business Model Competition.
It has been observed that startups with static business plans fail miserably since reality does not conform to their assumptions. Hence, there is a need for a more dynamic methodology while starting up and this is why the Entrepreneurship Cell, IIT Kharagpur sought to undertake a Business Model competition, which was entitled ‘Empresario.’
Empresario accepts business ideas in all fields which include Product and Service, Product Design and Social categories. Each of the entries get equal opportunity to win the prize and incubation money to the tune of Rs 2.5 crore. Previously, Empresario has been launched in association with TiE Kolkata, Mahindra Spark the Rise and Dell Social Innovation Challenge.
For the first round of Empresario, participants have to fill up a questionnaire asking in brief about their Business idea and submit it. This questionnaire can be found on the website www.ecell-iitkgp.org/empresario . If participants register now, they can avail the Early Bird privileges, which include extended mentoring and offline mentoring session.
One of the winners of Empresario’14, Betaglide also secured the largest funding among all the startups present at Rice Business Plan Competition of around $1 million.
For details visit www.ecell-iitkgp.org/empresario.