BackStudent entrepreneurs take centre stage
Student entrepreneurs take centre stage
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Chennai: Melting point, a two-month-old student-run café that sells ice-creams, juices and beverages in Chennai’s Rajalakshmi Engineering college, has been selected as one of the top five start-ups, beating more than 200 nominees, in the second edition of the Tata First Dot awards that identifies and rewards student ventures across India.
“An entrepreneur who wants to run a successful business cannot take his eyes away from the prize (profitability)," Kishor Chaukar, managing director of Tata Industries, said in his keynote address.
“We thought of ideas like recharge centre and providing Wi-Fi access for a fee. But we realized that food was something that would have constant demand and we decided to tie up with the government-owned Aavin stores," said Sriram Jayakumar, a final year student and founder of the campus run Melting point, who will soon hand over the reins to his juniors.
Indian Institute of Technology, Delhi, student Madhup Benawat’s brain-child Novo Informatics was also selected among the top five for developing software for drug research.
The venture is currently building software to efficiently monitor development of new molecules.
Phodphad, a social networking website for students that was founded by BITS Pilani’s Ayush Kumar and Nikhil Daga, was also ranked among the top five.
The website works much like an integrated Facebook site for universities. After facing a difficult first year in college in terms of connecting with fellow students, Daga decided to connect the isolated campuses in Goa and Hyderabad.
“Sometimes, I did not even know some of my batchmates because there were over 800 people," said Daga, when asked what sparked the idea for the website. “Even though I was a bio-science student, I read up on coding and website building. I wanted people who aspire to be in premier institutes in India to get a taste of the college experience and so I built something that anyone in the world can access."
Mumbai-based Bhupesh Sharma was selected for providing clean technologies through his two-year-old student venture Breson, which makes customized windmills and wind pumps as well as prototypes for companies such as Samsung and Voltas.
Experienced businessmen, who took time out to mentor the young entrepreneurs in the two-day event, stressed that profitability alone is not the end game.
“You need to build trust, because at the end of the day that is the only thing you can hand over to future generations to continue your business," said Chaukar.
Mint is a strategic partner for the event.
amritha.v@livemint.com
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