Empresario, Business-plan competition of IIT, Kharagpur

The 2011 edition of Empresario, the annual Business-plan competition of IIT, Kharagpur is now
underway. Organised by the Entrepreneurship Cell of IIT Kharagpur, the competition is open
to participants from across the globe under the various heads of social, product-based and
service-based entries, from any category under the sun - all that a team needs to participate
in Empresario is an idea!

The event consists of three stages – preliminary submission, shortlisting and mentoring, and a final
presentation before a panel of judges. Teams shortlisted subsequent to the preliminary submission
are helped through to develop their idea into a full-fledged Business Plan. Enormously valuable
mentorship will be provided to the shortlisted teams from a mentor team that has an impeccable
depth. The mentor team has quite a few distinguished people from various business fields in order
to help the teams to start-up. Keeping in line with the need of the hour, the Social Sector entries will
be judged separately, based on different parameters than entries under other categories.

The final few teams get a golden opportunity to pitch their ideas in front of some of India’s leading
VCs and angel investors, during the Global Entrepreneurship Summit 2012, to be held at IIT
Kharagpur. Winning is not all, in Empresario. A total of 1.8 Crore is at stake in the form of prize
money as well as funding opportunities from various organisations such as TePP, TIETS and MSME. A
rare opportunity to work with eminent personnel from some of the leading organisations of India is,
in itself a huge motivation for engineering students to poke their heads in to the event. India eagerly
awaits a brilliant spark from its young engineers as the prestigious competition unfolds over the next
five months or so. The questionnaire for preliminary submission can be found at http://www.ecell-
iitkgp.org/submission_detail_emp.php. To know more about Empresario, log on to www.ecell-
iitkgp.org.

As further effort to promote entrepreneurship across India, E-Cell IIT Kharagpur, every year
undertakes the responsibility of organising a mammoth nation-wide initiative known as the
Entreprneurship Awareness Drive (EAD). This consists of a series of Guest Lectures, workshops and
mentoring sessions in major cities across India. EAD 2011, from October <fill up> to <fil up> will see
us cover a total of 20 cities including <fill up>. The speakers include the likes of Dr. Kiran Mazumdar
Shaw, Chairman & Managing Director of Biocon Limited, Mr. Pradip Shah at EAD Mumbai - Director
Patni Computer Systems etc. To know about the EAD closest to you, visit ead.ecell-iitkgp.org.