Conquest 2010

CEL, Bits Pilani hosted its annual international business plan competition Conquest on 21^st and 22^nd 2010. The event, which was the final round of the business plan competition, saw the top four teams from the previous rounds battle it out to win the coveted prize of ` 1.5 Lakh.

The final round required the participants to present their business plans in the form of a closed door presentation. The finalists were judged on the basis of their clarity of thought, the viability of their business model and their pitching and presentation skills. The judges’ panel consisted of seasoned entrepreneurs, venture capitalists and academicians from the world of entrepreneurship.

The first prize of ` 1,50,000 went to Amrita Health Care Solutions, a project developed by students of NIT Surathkal whose team also included two doctors from SRM Medical College, Chennai. Their idea was to provide health care solutions to people in rural areas through an innovative mechanism. The solution envisages a medical diagnosis by means of patient-machine interaction and later, the patient gets a medical solution on the basis of the symptoms and interaction. Thus health care services can be imparted in villages where there are no doctors but only health care workers are available. The runner’s up prize of ` 50,000 went to Team Haplaw from BITS Pilani. Their business plan aims at providing real time legal services online.

Conquest 2010 was the culmination of an eight month process which included calling for entries, vetting, evaluation by experts and final presentation. Speaking on the process of the competition, this year’s Conquest coordinator, Mr. Ajay Bhise said, “We recieved over 500 entries for the first round. Out of these, about 90 entries were from abroad. Senior faculty of BITS along with our alumni screened the first round and selected around 40 entries which went to other experts in industry for evaluation. These 40 entries were asked to send their detailed business plans which were judged by seasoned entrepreneurs and venture capitalists and finally four business plans were chosen for the final presentation to be made at Conquest 2010 finals”.

Conquest 2010 also hosted the Global conference of E-Cells organized in partnership with NEN. The conference saw the participation of student entrepreneurship leaders from 20 colleges across the country. The Global Conference aimed to provide a unique collaboration among Entrepreneurship cells for the promotion and development of entrepreneurship in the country. Besides serving as a platform for the National Entrepreneurship Network, the Global Conference provided a platform to share ideas, innovation and experience. The Conference also provided opportunities for networking among counterparts in all participating institutions.

Conquest 2010 participants had an opportunity to interact with entrepreneurs, venture capitalists and experts which included Dr J P Narayan, President, Loksatta Party and a former civil servant. Other speakers included: Mr Dhiraj Rajaram, Founder and CEO of Mu-Sigma, Mr Anuj Sharma, COO of Sarvajal, Mr Vijay Shukla, Founder of Setu Ventures, Mr Sujit Panigrahi of Live Plus aim for Good Fitness, Mr Gautam Gandhi, Head of Google New Ventures India, Mr Ankur Singla, Founder of Coraza Advisors and Mr Ashish Sinha, Co-Founder of PluGGd.in.

The judging panel for the business plan competition included Mr. Prajakta Raut, Mr. Sujit Panigrihi, Mr. Aditya Natrajan and Mr. Vijay Shukla.

The valedictory function marked the end of Conquest 2010 were the Director, BITS Pilani, Pilani Campus, Prof G Raghurama presented trophies and prize cheques to the winning teams. Addressing the gathering at the ceremony, Professor-in-Charge of the Center for Entrepreneurial Leadership, Prof Arya Kumar said, “It is a matter of satisfaction that out of 10 winners of the past six competitions, seven have already been translated into ventures and this speaks of how our business competition is innovatively different”. Giving a piece of advice to the participants, Prof Kumar added, “Winners never quit, and quitters never win. Once you decide on your plans, please go ahead and work hard to translate it into reality”.

Conquest 2010 was sponsored by Mu Sigma, a company which has pioneered in analytics outsourcing and providing high quality business decision support services. Other sponsors included Tata Steel, Myntra.Com and Yuva magazine.

Conquest is an annual business plan competition cum entrepreneurship conclave organized and hosted by the Center for Entrepreneurial Leadership, BITS Pilani since 2004. For more details visit www.celbits.org/conquest