14th February 2019, Hyderabad, India: The 2nd edition of TiE-Grad Business Idea Tournament, declared today 16 business plans were shortlisted from record number of 106 business plans entries to compete at the final inter-college championships, TiE Grad Business Idea Tournament finals will be held in March 2019 in Hyderabad.
TIE conducted a series of qualifier rounds for all the 16 colleges which signed up to this world class college level entrepreneurship program, TiE Grad 2018-19. Over the last many months, many hands-on workshops were held at different engineering and management colleges and TiE Charter Member Mentors have introduced Entrepreneurship to over 2600+ students this year. Close to 10% of these students formed 106 teams and submitted their business plans through a technology platform TheBIZplanner.
After careful evaluation of these plans in terms of the strength of idea, viability of the business model and feasibility and scalability of the plan, the composition of the team, the TiE Mentors shortlisted 3-5 plans per college for intra college level pitching. In the qualifier rounds 125 students from 10 Telangana colleges formed 35 teams and presented their business plans to three tracks of 13 jury panel members, consisting of senior business and corporate leaders, seed capital, Private or Angel investors.
A broad spectrum of solutions were presented ranging from e-commerce to mobile utility apps to devices, gadgets viz. Drones, Robotic arms and impacting sectors like Emerging technologies, Med-tech, Ed-tech, Construction, Ag-tech, Energy/Clean tech, Sustainability solutions to name a few. Selected pre-finalists from these qualifier rounds will then pitch in front of global evaluators in March at the TiE Grad Business Idea Tournament.
TiE Charter Members, will mentor and guide these pre-finalists, prepare them to face the final round to be held in March at Hyderabad. The final winners from this TiE-Grad campus startup challenge program with a potential to set up global venture, will be nominated to TiE Global University Challenge Student B-Plan competitions in the US and other countries. The 2018-19 TiE Grad finalists also stand a great chance of winning exciting cash prizes as well as unlimited mentoring to not only set up their own ventures but also right connects to customers, global networks and access capital to grow and scale their business.
Making the announcement Suresh Reddy TiE Hyderabad President, “TiE Grad Business Idea Tournament is real-world class opportunity to learn what it takes to successfully launch a new business, and a chance to gain mentoring from investors, experienced entrepreneurs and compete on a global platform that gets exposure for a lifetime. Our aim is to pave way for these smart graduates from education to entrepreneurship and add 30 colleges to TiE Grad 2019-20 edition thereby introducing entrepreneurship to 5000+ young students.”
We are proud that our 1st edition TiE Grad 2017 finalist, WCB Robotics, incorporated a company and raised a combined investment of one and a half Million dollars so far for its game-changing idea, we are hopeful that we will continue to send students from Hyderabad to the international level this year too,” expressed Kali Prasad Gadiraju, Board Member of TiE Hyderabad and past president said. He added TiE continues to nurture and support WCB Robotics founder who is a student from Hyderabad.
TiE Grad Steering Committee members Subbaraju Pericherla Founder of Crossborders, Bhanu Prakash Varla, Director Graylogic Technologies and Nandita Sethi, Founder & MD The Entrepreneur Zone said” 2nd edition of TiE Grad program has recorded a multi-fold increase in college grad participation to a whopping 106 teams this year. TiE Hyderabad not only helps students enter a business plan competition and possibly winning cash prizes for their business idea, the important thing is to be able to have an access mentors to guide them through the process, keep their motivation at an all-time high and support the student entrepreneurs at every stage of planning.
TiE Hyderabad’s TiE GRAD program helps engineering & management colleges to build/scale a world-class Entrepreneurship Development Zones within their campuses through a structured program to guide and mentor students on Entrepreneurship. Each college is attached with one mentor all through the year for guidance and support to develop entrepreneurial mindset in students.
TiE Hyderabad engages colleges through year-long programs, viz. Idea Boot camps, Startup School, Immersive Learning workshops, Nominations to National & International Business Plan competitions, Hackathon Challenges and other initiatives.
In 2018, TiE (The Indus Entrepreneurs) Hyderabad Chapter successfully conducted of 60+ events & activities under 20+ themes to encourage, nurture next-generation entrepreneurs. TiE organization comprises successful entrepreneurs & accomplished professionals, volunteering to support startups, with an objective of fostering entrepreneurship across industries, at every stage of the entrepreneurial lifecycle. Handholding startups & enterprises to next level of growth through mentoring, education, funding & connecting customers & global networks.
