Training and Business Plan Competition Seek to Catalyze the Development of Entrepreneurship in India
Bangalore, March 14, 2012: The Nadathur S Raghavan Centre for Entrepreneurial Learning (NSRCEL), at the Indian Institute of Management, Bangalore (IIMB) today announced the launch of the 2012 session of the Next Big Idea, an integrated Entrepreneur training and business plan competition. The Next Big Idea is sponsored by the National Science & Technology Entrepreneurship Development Board (NSTEDB) under the aegis of the Department of Science & Technology, Government of India and Intel.
The Next Big Idea aims to encourage innovation and create a structured business plan process for leading academic institutions across the country so that the innovative ideas born through these institutions are taken forward to become real businesses, The programme also aims to create a platform where any individual or team can showcase their innovative ideas and seek mentoring, access to incubation and angel funds to help them create a real business.
An additional objective of The Next Big Idea is to build capacity in academic institutions that conduct business plan competitions thereby helping in bettering the quality of business ideas originated from there. The capacity building through academic institutions include offering financial support to their competition and conducting a two day fully paid conference at IIM Bangalore to enable sharing of information and training on best practices to conduct competitions.
"The Next Big Idea seeks to provide a perfect opportunity for entrepreneurs to showcase their ideas and have their attractiveness and viability evaluated by experts in an extremely competitive setting," asserts Professor K Kumar, Chairperson, NSRCEL.
The Next Big Idea now invites entries from winners of B-Plan competition across India during the year 1st April, 2011 to 31st March, 2012 to register and send their executive summaries at www.nextbigidea.in. The last date for receiving entries is March 31, 2012.
The incentives for the participating teams include a chance to be incubated and raise seed fund upto Rs 50 Lakh from NSRCEL, three days of fully-paid workshop at IIM-Bangalore with intensive mentoring and an opportunity to interact with VCs; 10 cash prizes in the range of Rs 25,000 to Rs 1, 50,000 and a sponsorship to participate in University of California, Berkeley Technology Entrepreneurship Challenge for the two best teams.
More information on The Next Big Idea is available at http://nextbigidea.in/
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About NSRCEL
The Centre for Entrepreneurial Studies was set up by IIMB in 1994 with a grant from Canara Bank to provide learning and knowledge resources to Small & Medium Enterprises (SMEs), and to offer courses on Entrepreneurship and conduct research in related areas. A generous endowment from Mr. Nadathur S Raghavan, former Joint Managing Director of Infosys Technologies Ltd in October 1999 provided the impetus for further growth of the Centre. Now known as the Nadathur S Raghavan Centre for Entrepreneurial Learning, the Centre aims to be a world-class Centre of Excellence for seeding, nurturing and promoting entrepreneurship. The activities of NSRCEL are varied, and encompass teaching, research, short-term programmes, seminar/panel discussions, incubation and other activities to support development of entrepreneurship and entrepreneurs.
More information on NSRCEL is available at http://www.nsrcel.org/
About IIMB
Established in 1972, the Indian Institute of Management Bangalore (IIMB) today offers a range of post-graduate and doctoral level courses as well as executive education programmes. IIMB Centres of Excellence are engaged in adding value to their communities in the areas of Public Policy, Capital Markets & Financial Management, Corporate Governance, Entrepreneurship, Public Policy, Software and Supply Chain Management, to name a few. In June 2010 IIMB obtained the European Quality Improvement System (EQUIS) accreditation awarded by the European Foundation for Management Development (EFMD). With a faculty body from amongst the best universities worldwide, IIMB is a leader in the area of management research, education and consulting.