IIT Kharagpur’s Empresario launched

Odisha Channel Bureau Bhubaneswar, Aug 25: Entrepreneurship Cell of IIT Kharagpur has launched its annual global business model competition Empresario 2016.Empresario 2016 has been launched 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 2016, which will be conducted abroad, according to the Entrepreneurship Cell, IIT Kharagpur, which is a student organisation established with the aim of fostering the spirit of entrepreneurship among college students in India.“We are one of the most successful entrepreneurial organisations in the country with over 50 start-ups incubated within 8 years of our inception.We are playing a vital role in developing the upcoming startups into successful companies by taking a great initiation of conducting flagship competition namely Empresario, our Annual and India’s only Global Business Model Competition,” according to the Cell.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’ (Visit www.ecell-iitkgp.org/empresario for more details).Empresario accepts business ideas in all fields which include Product and Service, Product Design and Social categories.Each of the entries gets equal opportunity to win the prize and incubation money to the tune of INR 2.5 crore.The prizes and services for the winners as per last year are worth 15 lacs INR.Previously, Empresario has been launched in association with TiE Kolkata, Mahindra Spark the Rise and Dell Social Innovation Challenge.Empresario is about recognizing that any new venture is just a guess at a problem / solution and the only way to test whether those guesses are correct is to “get outside the building” and validate their idea with customer feedback.A business model is designed to change rapidly to reflect what you find outside the building in talking to customers.It’s more visual, dynamic and it reflects the iterative reality that startups face.“We provide our shortlisted entries immense help in terms of mentorship and our winners also get a much sought after chance to pitch their ideas in front of some of 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.“For the first round of Empresario, we will require participants to fill up a questionnaire asking in brief about their Business idea and submit it.This questionnaire can be found on our 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,” the Cell said in a press release.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. Some of the past student startups who were winners of Empresario are:-• BetaGlide – Astartup by students of IIT Kharagpur, is a mobile app testing platform that allows developers to gather information in real-time about the system usage and the behavior of their app to improve its stability and performance.It has recently won the Tech Transfer Prize (Mercury Fund Prize) at Rice Business Plan Competition and became popular internationally.• Roof For Two – A startup by a team from Massachusetts Institute of Technology, is a unique concept that can help solve the age-old problem of two-wheeler riders who ride daily through rain, sun and the cold.Roof for Two eliminates travel irritation with an affordable and stylish riding canopy.• COEO Labs – An IIT Kharagpur based startup focused on developing innovative and low cost medical technology products.Their device Saans catapulted them to winning Empresario, Social Track and there was no stopping them following that.After winning the TATA Social Enterprise Challenge and Master Plan, Social Track at IIM-A, they also went on to the finals of the International Business Model Competition (IBMC).“We conduct our flagship event – Global Entrepreneurship Summit (GES), the largest collegiate entrepreneurial summit in India every year in January.The final rounds of Empresario 2015 will be held during GES’16,” the Cell added.