Manipal: ‘Team Energia’ from MIT secured the third position in Genesis ‘08 (a Social Entrepreneurship Business Plan contest) held at IIT Chennai on 30 March, thus obtaining direct entry into the semi finals of ‘E-Bases Challenge’ to be held and organised by Stanford University, USA.
The team comprised of Akhouri Piyush Raj as President of Company, Shekhar Kumar as Vice-President, Ankur Kumar Agarwal as CEO- Finance and Marketing, Saurabh Vats as CEO- R&D and Aaditya Vikram Agarwal as CEO-HR.
A total of 186 teams were contesting and a few who reached the final stage along with MIT were- the University of California, San Diego, USA; IIM Indore; IIT Kharagpur; IIT Chennai; BITS Pilani; BITS Dubai campus; and MNC Sapient Corporation. IIT Chennai and IIM Indore emerged as the other two winners apart from MIT.
This victory has made Team Energia’s paper among the top 20 business plan papers in the world at Stanford. After a final round of screening by Venture Capitalists, CEOs, Social entrepreneurs and other eminent people, top 10 teams will be selected who will then get a chance to go to Stanford.
One of the team members, Ankur Agarwal said the concept of their Business plan is a fish processing plant called ENERGIA, which is run on renewable sources of energy to fulfil its entire demand of energy requirements. He added, “We propose to set up this plant in a backward village having energy crisis and numerous social problems.”
Another team member, Akhouri Piyush Raj said, “Through the plant we aim to generate enormous profits and backward integrate it to the village for its entire development as a whole which is our philanthropic vision, hence creating what we call as a true ‘Bharat Gram’.”
According to the Associate Director (PS&PR) of MIT, Dr. Alapati Vittaleswar, it was the self motivation of the students which led them from the technical world to the business world.
He added that there is much more beyond getting campus recruitments and students should be enthusiastic towards exploring their talent. He also informed that the ‘Team Energia’ had won the prize for the Best Designed project in an event called ‘Innovation Challenge’, conducted by Schneider Electric India earlier in 2007.
“If we are not able make it to Stanford, we still have scope. Companies like L-Ramp and Rin will be offering fellowships after studying all the papers of Genesis. The team which qualifies will get a chance to pursue their idea with the financial support given by these companies,” added Ankur.
Sub-edited by Ruchika Sharma |
