ET BureauNEW DELHI: The latest edition of The Economic Times Power of Ideas (POI), India's largest entrepreneurship programme, which saw the participation of close to 20,000 startups across the country, has now provided more than 50 of India's most promising entrepreneurial talent, the launchpad to grow and nurture their still-nascent ventures.
From genomics and communications to augmented reality and wearables, the Power of Ideas event, in partnership with digital services giant Reliance Jio Infocomm, Centre for Innovation Incubation and Entrepreneurship (CIIE), the business incubator at Indian Institute of Management, Ahmedabad, and the government's Department of Science & Technology (DST), saw innovators showcase ideas across the spectrum at India's largest platform for aspiring entrepreneurs.
The rigorous five-month event culminated in 56 startups, some of which are still working out of the proverbial garage, receive grants and investments of between Rs 2 lakh to Rs 25 lakh from DST, which has a guaranteed corpus of Rs 6.2 crore, and will also receive Rs 20 crore of advertising capital from The Times Group's Brand Capital's incubator-focused fund.
Power of Ideas 2015 saw startups being invited to submit their ideas in September last year and attend mentoring sessions across cities.In January, the shortlisted startups were invited to IIM Ahmedabad, to attend a 10-day residential mentoring session, and were asked to present their business plans and make their final pitches.
The latest edition saw more than 3,500 applicants from the National Capital Region, followed by Mum bai and Bengaluru with about 3,000 entries each. However, there was also significant representation from beyond the metros, with a large number of entries from cities, such as Jaipur, Indore, Vadodara, Lucknow and Kanpur, amongst others, proving that India's entre preneurial spirit has begun to take root across the length and breadth of the country.
Predictably, the maximum entries were in broader technology sector, which included, clean-tech, mobility, analytics, cloud and internet of things.
Watsan Envirotech manufactures cost-effective, maintenance and electricity free water filters.The startup's filters helped filter bore well water into drinking water during the recent Chennai floods. Separately, Tellmate is a wearable computer vision device that comes in the form of glasses, which will process in-front images of visually impaired persons, convert it to sound and whisper it in the ear using hearing aids.
However, healthcare-focused innovations stood at par with the tech ideas, highlighting the increasing number of opportunities being identified by entrepreneurs in the space.
For example, MedPrime Technologies, started by IIT Bombay alum, is developing an intravenous infusion monitoring system, while Oxys Technologies has come out with low-cost blood glucose testing productising smart phones.
“ET's Power of Ideas was a great learning experience. Our company was selected among the 20 finalists to receive CIIE Funding... Most inspiring part was interaction with some bright minds and getting to know about some innovative ventures selected in Power of Ideas,“ said Chirag Gala, managing director, AVI Healthcare, which had participated in the 2011 edition of POI.
Additionally, POI was selected as the official entry channel for Royal Academy of Engineering (RAE), United Kingdom for their Leaders in Innovation Fellowship (LIF) programme. RAE takes startups from several countries every year and will exclusively pick from the POI list in India.
Up to 15 finalists of POI will attend the global programme, which includes eight-day, all expenses paid workshop on commercialisation skills, business modelling, customer development, etc.
From genomics and communications to augmented reality and wearables, the Power of Ideas event, in partnership with digital services giant Reliance Jio Infocomm, Centre for Innovation Incubation and Entrepreneurship (CIIE), the business incubator at Indian Institute of Management, Ahmedabad, and the government's Department of Science & Technology (DST), saw innovators showcase ideas across the spectrum at India's largest platform for aspiring entrepreneurs.
The rigorous five-month event culminated in 56 startups, some of which are still working out of the proverbial garage, receive grants and investments of between Rs 2 lakh to Rs 25 lakh from DST, which has a guaranteed corpus of Rs 6.2 crore, and will also receive Rs 20 crore of advertising capital from The Times Group's Brand Capital's incubator-focused fund.
Power of Ideas 2015 saw startups being invited to submit their ideas in September last year and attend mentoring sessions across cities.In January, the shortlisted startups were invited to IIM Ahmedabad, to attend a 10-day residential mentoring session, and were asked to present their business plans and make their final pitches.
The latest edition saw more than 3,500 applicants from the National Capital Region, followed by Mum bai and Bengaluru with about 3,000 entries each. However, there was also significant representation from beyond the metros, with a large number of entries from cities, such as Jaipur, Indore, Vadodara, Lucknow and Kanpur, amongst others, proving that India's entre preneurial spirit has begun to take root across the length and breadth of the country.
Predictably, the maximum entries were in broader technology sector, which included, clean-tech, mobility, analytics, cloud and internet of things.
Watsan Envirotech manufactures cost-effective, maintenance and electricity free water filters.The startup's filters helped filter bore well water into drinking water during the recent Chennai floods. Separately, Tellmate is a wearable computer vision device that comes in the form of glasses, which will process in-front images of visually impaired persons, convert it to sound and whisper it in the ear using hearing aids.
However, healthcare-focused innovations stood at par with the tech ideas, highlighting the increasing number of opportunities being identified by entrepreneurs in the space.
For example, MedPrime Technologies, started by IIT Bombay alum, is developing an intravenous infusion monitoring system, while Oxys Technologies has come out with low-cost blood glucose testing productising smart phones.
“ET's Power of Ideas was a great learning experience. Our company was selected among the 20 finalists to receive CIIE Funding... Most inspiring part was interaction with some bright minds and getting to know about some innovative ventures selected in Power of Ideas,“ said Chirag Gala, managing director, AVI Healthcare, which had participated in the 2011 edition of POI.
Additionally, POI was selected as the official entry channel for Royal Academy of Engineering (RAE), United Kingdom for their Leaders in Innovation Fellowship (LIF) programme. RAE takes startups from several countries every year and will exclusively pick from the POI list in India.
Up to 15 finalists of POI will attend the global programme, which includes eight-day, all expenses paid workshop on commercialisation skills, business modelling, customer development, etc.
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