AU’s incubation cell hosts a mega B-plan contest
PRAYAGRAJ: Allahabad University (AU) has initiated a dedicated platform for training students so that they are well placed after completing their formal education from varsity.
Brain child of the chancellor of AU Ashish Kumar Chauhan, it is called incubation cell.
“The incubation cell at AU is collaborating with Bombay Stock Exchange (BSE), Mumbai and Zone Startups, which is a new India-based incubator for entrepreneurs to fast-track startups and connect with mentors, customers and investors”, said public relation officer (PRO), of AU, prof Jaya Kapoor.
In line with it, a competition “Kaun Banega Entrepreneur” was organised on the varsity campus that concluded with its final round on Tuesday. Under the business plan competition, the postgraduate students and research scholars of AU had to submit their B-plans by March 31. “Fifty-six B-plan proposals were submitted to BSE and screened and finally 10 were shortlisted and as the last level of this competition,” said prof Kapoor. The plans were presented before a jury consisting of Zone Startups India’s MD Hemant Gupta and strategy head Gaurav Prakash along with well-known entrepreneur Anil Agarwal on Tuesday.
“The jury discussed the ideas at the conference hall of AU’s guest house. The 10 teams with its leader and members were given 10 minutes to pitch their ideas followed by a question and answer session.
The finale was graced by AU vice-chancellor Prof Sangita Srivastava,” said the PRO.The prize distribution ceremony was held wherein prof AK Singhal, chairman, Incubation Cell welcomed the jury members. He said that very soon the incubation cell will start functioning from its allocated space in the Eshwar Topa complex located on the Senate Hall campus of AU. The chief guest of the event AU vice chancellor prof Sangita Srivastava congratulated the winners and said that she felt very proud of the enthusiastic response of the students and innovative schemes that the students have come up with.
She expressed her confidence that the incubation cell will come up as a hub of active growth of entrepreneurship on the campus. The first prize was won by Chloro Bites, the B-plan of Shruti Srivastava (group leader), Lokesh Sharma, Abhijeet Sharma and Shashank Mani Tripathi from Centre of Biotechnology, AU. A cash prize of Rs 30,000 was awarded to them. First runner up was Pawtales and the second runner up was Mom’s Food 365.