Mumbai: Eureka! is an international Business plan competition organized by the Entrepreneurship Cell of Indian Institute of Technology (IIT) Bombay. Eureka! is Asia’s largest Business Model competition accredited independently by CNN and Thomson Reuters. The competition seeks to provide a platform for potential ideas and early stage start-ups to evaluate their plan in the risk- free environment of a competition, which aims to bridge the gap between ideas and the realization of an enterprise. The completion 2016 is launched and has invited applications from startups co-founders, students, professionals and innovators to apply for the 1st round of the mega competition.
The international Business plan competition has two segments promoting both business and social innovations: Eureka! Business and Eureka! Social. Eureka! Business, the trademark of the competition, aimed at helping ideas develop into businesses that have the potential to revolutionize the world. Eureka! Social encourages ideas and B-Models which cater to people at the bottom of the pyramid and or for a greener tomorrow. Eureka! Social will run as a parallel track and all the entries will be judged, mentored and evaluated separately self-sustainable in the long run.
Last year the competition saw over 8500 entries and had total prizes worth INR 5 million. Eureka! was first launched in 1999. The current year competition is the 18 edition of the international competition.
The completion concept is uniquely designed to reflect the process of the growth of an idea towards a full-fledged startup, which spans the 5 month period. The various steps of the selection process include: Launch and online registration; Questionnaire round (Illuminate); Business model round; and Pitching round. The final pitching round will be held in January 2017 and winners will be declared and awarded prizes during IIT Bombay’s E –Summit 2017 on 28 and 29 January 2017.
The top 8 teams in the Business Track, top 5 teams in the social track and top five teams in each of the Special Awards in the Business Model Round will qualify to the final round- The Pitching Round. At the Pitching Round, the finalists will pitch their ideas before the panel.
As per the rule of the competition, participants are required to register and submit their questionnaire/ business model online. A team can have one or more members with a maximum of 7 members in a team. The closing date for submission of the questionnaire questionnaire round is 28 September 2016.
For registration and eligibility details and other information, participants should visit the official website of Eureka! 2016: http://www.ecell.in/eureka/
For this year prize money of Rs 50 Lakh has been earmarked. Details on prize money are given below:
Business Track:
Winner- Prize money of INR 5,00,000
Runner up- Prize money of INR 3,00,000
Social Track
Winner- Prize money of INR 2,00,000
Runner up- Prize money of INR 1,00,000
Special awards
IIT Bombay award- Prize money of INR 1,00,000
Youth award- Prize money of INR 1,00,000
Technology and Sustainable Development award- Prize money of INR 1,50,000
FinTech award- Prize money of INR 1,50,000
Maharashtra awards- Total Prize money worth INR 6,00,000
