Four big reasons not to miss Conquest 2009

Things are heating up in the CEL room as we get closer to the Conquest weekend. This happens to be my fourth Conquest and I'm even more excited than my first Conquest in 2006.

Everybody is working hard to ensure the judges, participants, speakers and attendees have the best experience possible.

A major focus of Conquest has always been to be a platform for discussions and talks on entrepreneurship. We have a fantastic line up of speakers and the two days are packed with sessions. Anybody reading this should certainly think about coming down to Pilani! Its only 4 hours from Delhi or Jaipur and will be very much worth it.

Here are few of the sessions that I'm personally excited about:

1. Ajit Ranade on recent government policies that have created opportunities for entrepreneurs.

Mr. Ranade is an economics rock star and in this keynote I expect to learn about new possibilities for public-private partnerships and hopefully some specific thoughts on the energy sector.

2. Mahesh Murthy on fundaes of starting up.

Mahesh Murthy is a personal hero of mine for being a completely self-made person. Droping out of college, running the Amazon marketing campaign to coining the Pepsi's 'Yeh pyaas hai badi' slogan, his story is stuff of legends. A must attend for budding entrepreneurs!

3. A panel of VCs from Sequoia, Bluestream and Helion VC will discuss upcoming market opportunities in India. I think this session will inspire a lot of people who are looking for sectors to startup in. I'm convincing all first year juniors (who've landed in Pilani, barely a week back) to attend this one.

4. Gaurav Mishra on learning from activists. I first heard Gaurav Mishra on social media at the Grassroutes orientation and I can't wait to hear his ideas on marketing inspired from social activists.

So these are four big reasons not to miss Conquest 2009.

Dose of Gauravonomics this Conquest

We just confirmed another speaker for this year's Conquest. And it's a biggie.

Gaurav Mishra will be coming down to Pilani to give a talk on What Entrepreneurs can learn from activists during this year's Conquest.

Do have a look at Gaurav's blog.

In the past Gaurav has been, as he puts it, an overpaid car salesman after which he became a Yahoo! Fellow in International Values and Communication Technology and this resulted in him teaching Social Media at Georgetown University. After a lot of fun in US, he came back to India and came up with two initiatives, Vote Report India and a startup, 2020 Web Tech.

Gaurav writes extensively on anti consumerism (as was evident in his off consumption blog), social media, online activism.

But this is just the gist of it, the complete bio can be found here

Conquest: Our Finalists

Conquest began its campaign in March 2009 by inviting abstracts of business ideas from universities and corporates across the globes. We had a tremendous response with over 300 entries which were screened down to 33. The 33 teams submitted complete business plans to compete for the Conquest Trophy. After several rounds of scrutiny and evaluation by our panel of judges, six teams were selected as finalists of Conquest 2009. What followed was a 45 day mentoring period where our finalists where mapped to mentors to help them shape their plans better.

Five months after the process began, Conquest is now approaching its pinnacle with the 6 teams about to the fight out the last lap on campus at BITS Pilani. Here's a sneak-peak into our finalists:

SolarCycle - Brown University, Rhode Island
Solar Cycle began in 2008 in response to the staggering environmental damage and negative health effects caused by contaminated drinking water and indoor air pollution in the developing world. SolarCycle produces durable, sustainable, and financially accessible solar cookers and water pasteurizers to turn an urban trash problem into a potential solution for diarrheal illnesses and respiratory diseases.

F Active Solutions- IIT, Rourkee
F Active Solutions proposes to provide International Financial Reporting Standards (IFRSs) implementation and maintenance services to domestic and overseas (outsourcing) markets.The long term plan of F Active Solutions is to evolve as a complete financial house providing all services to its clients in synergy under one roof.

Build India- Shailesh J Mehta School of Management
Build India is a labor training management institute that will provide quality training to unskilled and semi-skilled laborers in the infrastructure sector.These laborers will be provided training for different trades which will help them work as skilled laborers. The training will be provided with a great emphasis on quality and standards.

Alchemy- National Institute of Industrial Engineering (NITIE)
Alchemy aims to gather valuable metals like Gold, Aluminium, Copper, Palladium, Tin etc. from the e-waste in an eco friendly manner. Their initiative is to aim at reducing the accumulation of used and discarded electronic and electrical equipments, which mostly end up in landfills or partly recycled in a unhygienic conditions by backyard recyclers and then partly thrown into waste streams damaging the environment. The objective of Alchemy is to create an opportunity to transfer waste into socially and industrially beneficial raw material using simple, low cost, home grown, environmental friendly technology.

Genie - BITS Pilani
Genie began in March 2008 and categorizes its services as mobile based location based services. GENIE is designed to provide its customers with a mobile environment which can satisfy all their location specific needs. GENIE provides its customers with an application which informs, entertains, and allows its users to locate discover valuable location sensitive information as well as a peace of mind.With GENIE you can search, review, locate, organize routes and navigate through the fastest route (taking least time) so you reach faster.

e-Social Marketplace- ISB Hyderabad & IIM Bangalore
The e-Social Marketplace would be an online platform that acts as a one-stop-shop to connect nonprofit organizations in the United States to its potential donors. It aims to improve quality, transparency, access and utility of information about nonprofit performance, social impact and donor behavior and also provide certain value-added services to the donors. This is a for-profit venture focusing on the nonprofit sector.

StartUp Showcase

Our exciting new addition to Conquest this year is StartUp Showcase. Conceptualized by a group of CELites over coffee, StartUp Showcase promises to be a one of its kind exhibition of startups that are creating ripples across the country.

Unlike most other showcases, StartUp Showcase would host only 4 budding startups, ensuring maximum impact of the firms on the audience. We are glad to have representation from all corners of the nation, with GreenOBin from Delhi, Voice Pitara from Ahmedabad, One Billion Minds from Kolkata and RangDe from Chennai comfirming their participation.

It all started with the putting up of a website and massive online publicity by the members of CEL. Within weeks, we had several responses from startups all over India. Following rounds of evaluations based on the startup's idea and appeal, 4 best ones were selected.

The showcase would involve stalls at the Conquest venue for the teams to display their efforts as well as special closed door pitching sessions with all VCs present. The event would also have an open-door pitching in the Lecture Theatre Complex of BITS Pilani to inspire the audience.

We at CEL hope to have a wonderful maiden edition of StartUp Showcase and are working towards it.

Follow us on Twitter for more updates @conquest2009

Conquest 2009 Grand Finale

Members of the Center for Entrpreneurial Leadership at BITS Pilani are bustling with activity. Having arrived on campus close to a week in advance of reopening, we are gearing up to host the biggest ever finale with lots of intersting additions.

Conquest had got off to a swift start with over 300 entries of business plans from 4 different continents. After gruelling rounds of evaluation and personal mentoring by our unique panel of mentors, Conquest would now winess the confluence of 5 budding finalists together with a host of eloquent speakers and a few added specialties.

Our list of speakers includes

• Ajit Ranade from Aditya Birla Group
• Mahesh Murthy from Pinstorm
• Raj Gollamudi from Blue Stream Ventures
• Prajakt Raut from Orange Cross
• Naren Dubey from Scan Cafe
• Shashikant Khandelwal from Thefind Inc
• Gayathri Rath from GE Capital.

As an additive attraction to Conquest, CEL is hosting StartUp Showcase that would showcase 4 budding Indian StartUps, currently creating ripples in the ecosystem, to the Conquest audience. Our final list of StartUps covers the four corners of Indian map:

• GreenOBin from Delhi
• Voice Pitara from Ahmedabad
• One Billion Minds from Kolkata
• RangDe from Chennai

We are hoping to have a great showcase from these startups who would certainly inspire the BITSian population to startup and create value to the society.

The CEL student team is all eager to organize this one of its kind Business fiesta for the audience at BITS Pilani.

Conquest 2009 Finalists

It gives us great pleasure to announce the finalists of Conquest 2009.

The finalists are (in alphabetical order of team names)

• Alchemy (NITIE, Mumbai)
• Build India (Shailesh J. Mehta School of Management, IIT Bombay)
• e-Social Marketplace (Indian School of Business, Hyderabad and IIM)
• F Active Solutions Pvt Ltd (IIT Roorkee)
• SolarCycle (Brown University, RI, USA)

The waitlisted teams are

• Ability (International Space University, Strasbourg,France)
• Light Choupal (IIT Madras)
• Vermpet (Indira Gandhi Institute of Technology, GGSIPU, Delhi)

We are eagerly waiting to see the finalists at BITS Pilani during the Conquest Finale on 8th and 9th of August 2009.