IIT Kharagpur’s Entrepreneurship Cell’s Empresario: Global Business Model Competition

Entrepreneurs have the ability to change the way we live our lives. Their successful innovations can improve our way of living and can aid in the development of society. They not only create wealth for the economy but also are reckoned as job-creators and beacons of prosperity.

Young people across India need to be helped to identify and develop entrepreneurial attitudes as well as to develop appropriate managerial competencies if they are to stand out in the world.

Entrepreneurship Cell, IIT Kharagpur is a student organization established with the aim of fostering the spirit of entrepreneurship among college students in India. They are one of the most successful entrepreneurial organisations in the country with over 50 start-ups incubated within 8 years of inception. They play a vital role in developing  the upcoming start-ups into successful companies by taking a great initiation of conducting their flagship competition Empresario, their Annual and India’s only Global Business Model Competition. The main goal of their business model it to put customer focus first.

It has been observed that startups with static business plans fail miserably since reality does not conform to their assumptions. Hence, there is a need for a more dynamic methodology while starting up and this is why the Entrepreneurship Cell, IIT Kharagpur sought to undertake a Business Model competition, which was titled; Empresario. Empresario accepts business ideas in all fields which include Product and Service, Product Design and Social categories. Each of the entries get equal opportunity to win the prize and incubation money to the tune of INR 2.5 crore.. Previously, Empresario has been launched in association with TiE Kolkata, Mahindra Spark the Rise and Dell Social Innovation Challenge.

Empresario is about recognizing that any new venture is just a guess at a problem / solution and the only way to test whether those guesses are correct is to “get outside the building” and validate their idea with customer feedback. A business model is designed to change rapidly to reflect what you find outside the building in talking to customers. It’s more visual, dynamic and it reflects the iterative reality that startups face.

This year, Entrepreneurship Cell IIT Kharagpur and IBM are proud to present Empresario 2016 in association with the prestigious International Business Model Competition (IBMC) which is co-hosted by Stanford, Harvard and Brigham University.

The best entries in all categories will get an opportunity to participate directly in the semi-final rounds of IBMC 2016, which will be conducted abroad. (Click here for more details). The prizes and services for the winners as per last year are worth 25 lacs INR.

The shortlisted entries are provided immense help in terms of mentorship and the winners also get a much sought after chance to pitch their ideas in front of some of India’s biggest VCs and investors.

Empresario participants are mentored and supported by organisations like TiE, NEN (National Entrepreneurship Network) etc.

Startup Services like legal advice, taxation, financial, technical aspects of running a startup, co-working space, HR needs, incubation opportunities, etc. are provided.

The first round of Empresario, will require participants to fill up a questionnaire asking in brief about their Business idea and submit it.

This questionnaire can be found on their website.

Register now to avail the Early Bird privileges, which include extended mentoring and offline mentoring session!

One of the winners of Empresario’14, Betaglide also secured the largest funding among all the startups present at Rice Business Plan Competition of around $1 million.

They also conduct their flagship event – Global Entrepreneurship Summit (GES), the largest collegiate entrepreneurial summit in India every year in January.

The final rounds of Empresario 2017 will be held during GES’17.