The winners of the TiE Grad Business Idea Tournament conducted by The Indus Entrepreneurs (TiE) Hyderabad chapter have since been announced. The finale was held in Hyderabad last weekend in which the special panel comprising the jury, investors and angels listened to the presentations made by the top 10 finalists. The presentation included a one-minute Elevator Pitch.
This year’s winners were two teams chosen as the joint champions - Vinnan Labs team from BiTS Pilani, Hyderabad and Solar Power Plus team from Vishnu Institute of Technology, Bhimavaram. BiTS Pilani Hyderabad team had presented a HOMA Robot to minimise hospital-acquired infections and the co-winnr from Bhimavaram, an automated solar panel cleaning technology.
There were winners in some of the other categories too:
1. The Best 1 Minute elevator pitch: UtorAI from Vardhman College of Engineering, Hyderabad – project: chat bot building platform
2. Best scalable business model for global markets: Symphony – Project: a social networking platform for music enthusiasts
3. Best Innovative Idea: Lighthouse Tech team from Sreenidhi Institute of Science & Technologies, Hyderabad – Project: smart pill dispensing companion
4. Best Presentation Skills: UtorAI – Project: Modular Open Source Chat Bots
Each of these winners gets Rs 7 lakh as prize money.
This year, TiE Grad Business Idea Challenge was a long drawn one lasting the whole of a year, with 2600 students from colleges in Andhra Pradesh and Telangana being put through mentoring programme. The 10 teams that made the presentation in the finale on Saturday were chosen from a total of 119 teams.
The other highlight of this year’s tournament is that three teams All Sports Extra from Vasavi College, Vinnan Labs from BiTS Hyderabad Campus and Symphony the music sharing app have been selected to receive the three M’s, money, markets and mentors. Five investors have already signed up to seed fund these three teams in their ventures.
“Education to entrepreneurship is the keystone to building a strong startup ecosystem of future entrepreneurs. In our next edition we will onboard only 25 select colleges, our aim is to outperform our depth and range of activities we introduce to our students from Tier 1 & Tier 2 cities that will benefit more than 5000+ young studentpreneurs.” Subba Raju Pericherla, TiE Grad Program Chair, and Board Member said.