Students of the Indian Institute of Management, Ahmedabad (IIM-A) have launched a business plan competition-Masterplan-as part of Confluence, its annual business summit.
Masterplan builds upon the summit's current theme, 'Changing winds: New Paradigms of Leadership' and focuses on the saying that recessionary periods are the best time to start your own venture. Microsoft, Genentech, General Motors, AT&T are some of the great companies that were founded during contrarian economic conditions. In these times, smart entrepreneurs often come up with innovative and efficient ways to provide just what the market demands and set up an example for others to follow.
"Through Masterplan, we want to identify budding entrepreneurs who have ideas for disruptive innovation and provide a platform to help their dreams come to fruition", says Akshay Palwe, one of the organizers of this business plan competition.
The business plan contest seeks to identify mavericks, who dare to think unconventionally and help them in launching seminal ventures. "Going against the current requires a right mix of radical thinking, unceasing efforts and unbridled optimism," said Palwe.
Masterplan has thrown its doors open to all for participation to solicit a wide range of ideas. Teams can comprise of business school students, undergraduate students, corporate professionals and other independent individuals. Business plans would be assessed on various parameters like ingenuity of the underlying approach, understanding of existing market landscape and growth trajectory for the business.
"Participants have no restrictions over the choice of topic for their business idea. However, we are actively looking for mentorship and funding in some areas like manpower development, renewable energy or mobile banking", said Kunal Gupta, the coordinator of Masterplan.
Masterplan has turned to Nurture Talent Academy as its official knowledge partner for mentoring. The academy would help the participants address the shortcomings in their B-plans and make their plans more potent. A select set of teams would be invited to IIMA campus during Confluence, where they would get an opportunity to present their
ideas to a panel of judges compromising of industry stalwarts, venture capitalists and angel investors. Prize money for the Masterplan competition is Rs 1.5 lakhs.
