PU to promote start-ups, competition from Oct 12

Budding entrepreneurs can now pool in their ideas for business start-ups at the Panjab University Idea Catalyst, a competition to be organised by the students of the University Institute of Engineering and Technology.

The 52-hour competition, open for students and working professionals, will be held from October 12 to 14. Individual participants will be judged by founders of companies, who will also act as mentors to assist them with the finer details of their business ideas. The winning team will earn an investment of Rs 50,000 for their start-up by Altruist Technologies, a business process outsourcing company.

"The start-ups launched, thus, will contribute to the local placement scenario and to the economy of the country in the long term," says Pallav Agrawal, a third year student at UIET and a member of the organizing team. He says that they came up with the idea for the competition because they felt that India needs hundreds of fresh business start-ups but the young talent remains in need of suitable launch pads.

Ideas have been invited across domains, including biotechnology, Information Technology and environment, say the organizers, and what will place a team on top of the competition will be their passion and focus in executing their business idea.

Sameer Guglani, co-founder of The Morpheus, and one of the mentors at the event said that they are looking for a team with capability and attitude to create a product and launch a project. "We are looking at people with tenacity to last long, as start-ups need months to formulate. A lot of energy, effort and long working hours are required to be put in," says Sameer.

He says that there is no dearth of young people with new ideas and arranging finances is comparatively easier for them but what is lacking is guidance and technical support, which events like these can generate.

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