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In December 2021, Atal Innovation Mission(AIM), NITI Aayog partnered with the prestigious Indian School of Business (ISB) to curate a special program – “Atal Catalysts @ISB” with the goal of nurturing the Top 100 Business Venture Ideas that emerged from the ATL Tinkerpreneur Bootcamp.
The Tinkerpreneur bootcamp was a first of its kind initiative by AIM to teach students entrepreneurship during the summer break. Students learnt various skills such as latest technology skills, building a product, business models, marketing, branding, business finance, building an online store and finally how to pitch their venture. ATL Tinkerpreneur witnessed participation from over 9000 students and leveraged the knowledge and hands-on involvement of over 650 Mentors of Change to build a complete digital business venture at the end of the bootcamp. The Top 100 Students/teams were mapped to ISB to nurture their ideas further.
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I-Venture @ ISB, which fosters all entrepreneurial activities for the Institution and nurtures start-ups, took over the charge of developing, designing and executing the 2nd stage of the students’ journey towards becoming entrepreneurs. Since then, the students/teams with the 100 most promising ideas have gone through a variety of Masterclasses and mentoring sessions that have added value to them and to their products.
No less than six Masterclasses were conducted, each of them taught using case studies and real-world examples. The topics covered a wide range:
1. Entrepreneurial Ecosystem & Mindset
2. Competitor Analysis & Market Research
3. Idea Validation, Product or Idea Development
4. Digital Marketing & Branding
5. Finance & HR
6. Investor Pitch & Pitching Techniques
While the Masterclasses added to the knowledge base of the students, the highlight of their journey at Atal Catalysts @ ISB was the customized mentoring experience that was curated for each of them. More than 65 mentors were part of the program, each of them an alumnus of ISB. Each of them came from different backgrounds and fields and brought different capabilities with them. The Atal Catalysts @ ISB team carefully analysed the areas of improvement for every idea and mapped it to the expertise of the right mentor. This ensured that the students got the most appropriate guidance they needed to enhance their product and develop the necessary entrepreneurial/business skills. The mentoring sessions were conducted one-on-one so that they provided personalized attention to each of the students/teams.
Once the products and pitches were refined, the difficult task of selecting the most promising ideas began. The Big Pitch, an event where the teams showcased their ideas to a panel, was conducted over two weekends. The sponsors at The Big Pitch were I-Venture @ ISB, PKF Sridhar & Santhanam, and Prasad Medikonda. The panellist said that they had a tough time shortlisting 10 out of the 20 ideas pitched.
With the sponsorships, the selected students/teams will work on developing the app or website before taking them to market.
These are the 10 most promising ideas that emerged from The Big Pitch:
| Student Names | Application | Sponsor |
| Yuvati | S-Women is an Android application for all girls and women who face problems during menstruation and puberty. It also has an E-commerce platform which is very user-friendly and has all the feminine products on a single platform. | I-Venture @ ISB |
| Abhay Kumar Das | Designers Desk believes in the 'Learn - Create - Earn' concept and promotes the Indian forgotten folk arts in a new way by implementing those art forms on a digital canvas. In the era of NFTs, it also provides an opportunity to sell the art in form of NFT which can be viewed in a 360° virtual art gallery as the world is leading towards metaverse | I-Venture @ ISB |
| Harshita Ramrakhyani & Radhika Singh | Learner's Mate is an online student community platform where students of mutual interests gather together and make meaningful connections. | I-Venture @ ISB |
| Vanshika Manchanda | MADE IN INDIA - GAIN INDIA is a social entrepreneurship venture which provides an e-marketplace where pottery items created by BPL Artisans and Potters from all corners of the country can be made available to the target consumer segment in the urban areas. | I-Venture @ ISB |
| Rishabh Arora | Adopt a Parent aims at providing a new family to elderly people staying in old age homes. The youngsters who lost their parents can adopt a parent. | PKF Sridhar & Santhanam |
| Akshara Singh | PneuCheck aims to solve the problem of misdiagnosis using computer vision and building a more functional and doctor-friendly EMR. | Mr. Prasad Medikonda, ISB Alumni |
| Shriyansh Dalmia, Ashesh Mishra & Rachit Kumar | Fitframe is personalized yoga trainer. It not only teaches yoga by showing yoga but also helps to rectify mistakes. | PKF Sridhar & Santhanam |
| Shambhavi Prakash | eLAAZ is complete personalized medical solution | PKF Sridhar & Santhanam |
| Shivansh Kulshrestha | Smart IOT enabled device which can control the function of watering inhouse plants irrespective of the presence of the care-taker. | PKF Sridhar & Santhanam |
| Ansh Shawrikar | Product provides coding courses through short videos for each elements that are required in a website. The target audience is school students. | PKF Sridhar & Santhanam |
There was yet another high point for these promising Atal Tinkering Labs students/teams and ISB mentors. In keeping with the technologically advanced ideas that they worked with, the students and mentors were thrilled to receive their completion certificates and appreciation certificates from AIM and I-Venture @ ISB, which were issued on the latest Blockchain technology for increased security, transparency and traceability.
One of the students said, “It was a truly amazing experience to be mentored by an alumnus of Indian School of Business. During our course, I not only got to know about the fundamentals of design thinking skills but I was also able to refine my product. It was eye-opening to see how much my product was enhanced over the course of a few months.”
A similar sentiment was shared by one of the mentors who mentioned, “Thank you I-Venture @ ISB, Atal Innovation Mission Official, and NITI Aayog for the opportunity to mentor some amazing youngsters for their start-up ideas. It was fascinating to see how despite their young age, school students were able to quickly grasp business concepts and ideas. A huge learning experience for me as well!”
Dr. Chintan Vaishnav, Mission Director, AIM said “The Tinkerpreneur bootcamp was a very special one for us all. It was the first time AIM embarked upon an ambitious entrepreneurship journey for ATL Students at this scale and that too during the pandemic. I want to congratulate all the students who took part in this bootcamp, all the Mentors of Change who took time out of their busy schedules to mentor students daily over 2 months. I am also delighted at the successful conduction of the Atal Catalyst @ISB and The Big Pitch program by I-Venture @ISB for the Top students of Tinkerpreneur. I’m sure this has been an incredible boost of confidence and energy for all of them and will encourage many more innovative business ideas in the future.“
Prof. Bhagwan Chowdhry, Faculty Director observed that, “ISB is now committed to developing a robust entrepreneurship eco-system in the country. Atal Catalysts @ ISB's partnership with the Atal Innovation Mission for mentoring the young entrepreneurs in India of Atal Tinkering Labs is a heartening step towards that goal.”
Director of I-Venture @ ISB, Saumya, noted, “At I-Venture@ ISB, we are committed to delivering an impact. We’re delighted and reassured to see that the Digipreneurs have gained so much from the Atal Catalysts @ ISB Program. We wish them good luck, and we promise to continue creating similar programs in the future as well.”
The combined efforts of AIM, NITI Aayog and I-Venture @ ISB are on the brink of going live as the top 10 ideas of this cohort are now in the development phase. The next milestone for the student/teams is launching the app on AppStore or hosting the website. From ‘tinkering’ with ideas last summer in ATL Tinkerpreneur, to actually seeing their products go live this summer, our young minds and Digipreneurs have certainly come a long way in their entrepreneurial journey.