Students interact with entrepreneurs

Students of National Institute of Technology, Tiruchi, gained valuable insights on entrepreneurship during the Start-up Weekend.

The event, a part of a global initiative powered by TechStars and Google for Entrepreneurs, initiated participants to get a glimpse of the dynamics of start-ups over 54 hours through interactions with successful entrepreneurs.

After listening to a talk by Suman Mishra, AVP Business Development, Tech Mahindra, about the Indian start-up ecosystem and the current funding scenario, the participants pitched their ideas. Out of 35 ideas, 10 were selected and teams were formed to take the ideas forward at the end of the first day. The students who felt motivated by the progress made by prominent start-ups founded by alumni, worked on building their product and getting their business model validated by mentors.

The mentors identified on the basis of domain expertise in multiple fields constituted Atul Manohar, Director of User Experience, Informatica; Saurabh Pareek, Senior Product Manager, Paypal; Mothi Venkatesh, Product Marketing Manager, Playment; Shubham Badal, Co-founder, CybrHome; Naveen
Athresh, Head of Product, Liquid Mind Product; Purnank Prakash, Co-founder at Tacnik and EsportsVilla; and Prashanth Venkataraman, Co-founder at Beecon Fleet Management.

An interesting aspect of the second day was the live video chat the NIT-T students had with their counterparts attending the Start-up weekend event at New Zealand signifying the global nature of the event. The teams had to finalise their business canvas model and present their pitches to the judges for evaluation. The final pitch was preceded by a mock pitching session in the presence of mentors.

The judging panel consisted of Hari Krishnan, Co Founder, Hacker Earth; Chandrashekar Kupperi, Founder, Anova Corp Services; and Hari Krishnan, Fund Manager, Astarc Ventures.

Team “Meili,” which won the coveted first prize, developed a travel guide with an automated option and integrated Augmented Reality.

The runners-up, Team “Houstel,” aimed to make students feel closer to home while being in the hostel. Team “Freshly Brewed” which won the third prize, developed a clothing line aimed at customising apparel for college based events and societies. Samson Mathew, Dean (Students Welfare), NIT-T distributed prizes.
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