Conquest 2010, the two day International Business Plan competition and Global Conference of E-Cells was hosted by BITS Pilani on 21st and 22nd August 2010 with the participation of the top 4 finalists of the Business Plan competition and student entrepreneurship leaders from 20 different colleges of India.

While the top four finalists presented their business plans, they were quizzed by judges which included entrepreneurs, experts, professors and venture capitalists. The first prize of Rs 1,50,000 went to the project, Amrita Health Care Solutions developed by students of NIT Surathkal whose team also included two doctors from SRM Medical College, Chennai. Their idea was to provide health care solutions to people in rural areas through an innovative mechanism. The solution envisages a medical diagnosis by means of patient-machine interaction and later, the patient gets a medical solution on the basis of the symptoms and interaction. Thus health care services can be imparted in villages where there are no doctors but only health care workers are available. The runners up prize Rs 50,000 went to the project, Haplaw from BITS Pilani, which envisages providing real time legal services online.

Conquest 2010 was the culmination of eight months’ exercise which included calling for entries, vetting, evaluation by experts and final presentation. Speaking on the process of the competition, this year’s Conquest coordinator, Mr Ajay Bhise said, “Initially there were over 500 entries from both India and abroad. Out of these, about 90 entries were from abroad. Senior faculty of BITS along with our alumni screened the first round and selected around 40 entries which went to other experts in industry for evaluation. These 40 entries were asked to send detailed business plans which was judged by entrepreneurs and other venture capitalists in the industry and finally 4 business plans were chosen for the final presentation to be made at Conquest 2010 finals”.

In addition to the Business Competition, this year’s Conquest saw the Global Conference of Entrepreneurship Cells which had participants from over 20 colleges of different states of India..The Global Conference aimed to provide a unique collaboration among Entrepreneurship cells for the promotion and development of entrepreneurship in the country. Besides serving as a platform for the National Entrepreneurship Network, the Global Conference provided a platform to share ideas, innovation and experience. The Conference also provided opportunities for networking among counterparts in all participating institutions.

Conquest participants had an opportunity to interact with entrepreneurs, venture capitalists and experts which included Dr J P Narayan, President, Loksatta Party and a former civil servant. Other speakers included : Mr Dhiraj Rajaram, Founder and CEO of Mu-Sigma, Mr Anuj Sharma, COO of Sarvajal, Mr Vijay Shukla, Founder of Setu Ventures, Mr Sujit Panigrahi of Live Plus aim for Good Fitness, Mr Gautam Gandhi, Head of Google New Ventures India, Mr Ankur Singla, Founder of Coraza Advisors and Mr Ashish Sinha, Co-Founder of PluGGd.in.

Conquest is an annual event organized by the Center for Entrepreneurial Leadership, BITS Pilani since 2004. As a part of the valedictory function, Director of the Institute, Prof G Raghurama presented trophies and prize cheques to the winning teams. Concluding the event, the Professor in Charge of the Center for Entrepreneurial Leadership, Prof Arya Kumar said, “ It is a matter of satisfaction that out of 10 winners of the past six competitions, seven have already been translated into ventures and this speaks of how our business competition is innovatively different”. Giving a piece of advice to the participants, Prof Kumar added, “ Winners never quit, and quitters never win. Once you decide on your plans, please go ahead and work hard to translate it into reality”.

This year’s Conquest was sponsored by Mu Sigma, a company which has pioneered in analytics outsourcing and providing high quality business decision support services. Other sponsors included Tata Steel, Myntra.Com and Yuva magazine.

Contact BITS Pilani

For more information relating to this press release, please contact Dr M Ishwara Bhat, Unit Chief, Publications and Media Relations, BITS Pilani. Cellphone +91 9414082462

Birla Institute of Technology and Science, Pilani is an all India university established under Section 3 of UGC Act. It has the main campus at Pilani, Rajasthan and additional campuses at Goa, Hyderabad and Dubai.

Visit : www.bits-pilani.