The 11th edition of the Entrepreneurship Summit of the Indian Institute of Technology, Bombay (IIT-B) that came to an end on Sunday saw a record number of attendees.
The 11th edition of the Entrepreneurship Summit of the Indian Institute of Technology, Bombay (IIT-B) that came to an end on Sunday saw a record number of attendees. According to the organisers, the competitions Ten Minute Million Challenge and Eureka, apart from the various speakers who were featured, were the main attractions in the two-day event. While the finalists of Eureka took home a prize money of Rs 50 lakhs, the Ten Minute Million challenge saw four startup pitches receiving spot finance from investors to the tune of '60 lakhs, the highest amount disbursed by investors in the competition till date.
Speaking about the response to the competition, Shreya Gupta, media head, The Entrepreneurship Cell, IIT-B said, “There were close to 25,000 people who were attending the Speaker Sessions, Workshops & Competitions, making it the largest Entrepreneurship Summit in India.”
Ms Gupta added that the Convocation Hall, which has a seating capacity of 3,500 saw more than 6,000 odd people sitting on the aisles and standing on the sides to catch the talks by speakers like Ramesh Raskar (MIT Media Labs) and Professor Anil Gupta (Head, National Innovation Center) during the innovation conclave at the summit. The summit also saw speakers from five countries speaking on the entrepreneurship scenario in their respective countries including Belgium, Netherlands, USA, Europe and India.
The Ten Minute Million Challenge made a huge impact and was a large success this year. The investor panel was left amazed by some of the pitches made by the startups. The highlight this year was Soundsurround (3-D Concert experience in a room), whose Co-Founder is Ashray Malhotra.“The investors offered us up to '85 lakhs as funding but as per the rule we can get only '15 lakhs. Both me and my partner Pritam Baral are happy that our startup impressed the investors and prompted them to offer us spot funding,” said Mr Malhotra, an electrical engineering student from IIT-B. Mr Baral is from the aerospace department.
