Grand Finale Of Conquest 2012 Held On 19th August 2012

Online, August 24, 2012 (Newswire.com) - Grand finale of the 8th edition of the business plan competition, 'Conquest' was organized by the Center for Entrepreneurial Leadership (CEL)of BITS Pilani on Sunday, 19th August 2012. It was held at the Sathya Sai International Center, Lodhi Road, New Delhi. Ten finalists presented their start up ideas in the presence of over 300 audience which included students from various colleges across the country besides BITSians. The startup, Enerture Technology Pvt. Ltd. was adjudged as the best amongst the ten and was awarded prize money of Rs. 1.5 Lakhs along with an all-expenses paid trip to Thailand for the All Asia Business Plan competition. Solar Town Energy Solutions Pvt. Ltd. was adjudged as the runner-up. All the ten finalists were given a Blackberry Playbook and a Blackberry Smartphone.

Welcoming the judges and participants in the inaugural session, Director of BITS Pilani, Prof. G. Raghurama said, "Today, it is the norm for people to think out of the box and in a bolder fashion". Prof. Arya Kumar, Professor -in-Charge, CEL spoke of Conquest's evolution over the last seven years, right from when it began in 2004 as a fledgling student initiative, to its present status as one the most prestigious student-run business-competitions in the country. Conquest co-ordinator, RohanManchanda said "the focus is on creating more startups out of the competition and providing them adequate resources to scale up their ventures" which explains how Conquest had about INR 4 crore worth of incentives to offer for the top 10 finalists.

There has been overwhelming response to this year's Conquest. In total, over 440 ideas were received on the event website by 30th May 2012. These included 8 entries from abroad. Out of these, 35 teams were selected by a jury of entrepreneurs around the world. These 35 teams were chosen for mentorships in various cities of the country including Delhi, Mumbai, Hyderabad, Bangalore and Chennai. Ideas from abroad were mentored through Skype video conferencing.

After mentorships these teams were asked to prepare a video presenting the prototypes which were examined by a panel of judges who selected the 10 best ideas. Over the past few weeks each of these finalists received professional mentoring from venture capitalists and angel investors. Some prominent names including VT Bharadwaj (ex-BITSian, MD, Sequoia Capital), Kevin Saldanha (Director, Freemont Partners), Alok Mittal (MD, Canaan) et al. All of these established stalwarts in their respective fields also flew down to Delhi for judging the contest.

This year's Finale also included a Panel Discussion by six experienced Venture Capitalists, namely, Rajesh Sawhney (Former President, Reliance Entertainment), SandeepSinghal (MD, Nexus Ventures), Vivek Mohan (Freemont Partners), Mukund Mohan (Co-Founder, HeyMaya), AnkurWarikoo (CEO, Groupon India), Ravi Kiran (Co-founder, Venture Nursery). They provided an in-depth analysis into the pertinent issue about when it would be correct time to raise money for a start-up. The auditorium being jam packed with budding entrepreneurs, the panel discussion surely gave out a lot of useful advice to all those present.

Partners for this year's Conquest include : CNBC TV 18 Young Turks, Freemont Partners, Blackberry, Technology Development Board and KAE Capital besides others.