Team Pioneers will now compete with 30 teams from across the globe in the semi-finals to be held in mid-May 2021.
Coimbatore: TiE Coimbatore, one among the 61 worldwide chapters of TiE completed its local pitch competition to select the college team to represent the city at the global finals of the TiE University Global Pitch Competition.
Team Pioneers from KPR Institute of Engineering and Technology consisting of Haribalan S, Faheem Ahmed, Gokul G, Divyabharathi P, Harish N and Meenakshi BS as its team members was picked as the winning team. The team will now compete with 30 teams from across the globe in the semi-finals to be held in mid-May 2021.
The team’s business idea is related to Bio Toilets and a patent pending method to digest human waste and convert it to water usable for agriculture. Over 550 teams are participating in this global event to empower students at universities and colleges to become entrepreneurs.
TiE University, an initiative of TIE Global, aims to foster entrepreneurship among college students. University startup teams gain access to learning resources, mentorship by successful entrepreneurs and opportunities to participate in Hackathons, Startup Bootcamps, and Pitch Competitions. These interactions and experiences help startups take their business from a campus idea into a viable business. TiE University helps foster entrepreneurship globally, with 61 chapters in 14 countries assisting startups through mentoring, networking and education.
Speaking about the competition, Ranjana Singhal, President of the Chapter said, “The pitch competition is a platform for entrepreneurs like me to give back to the ecosystem and to help foster entrepreneurship among college students. The TiE University program offers valuable support to the next generation of entrepreneurs to launch and scale their startups.”
According to the Chapter champion, B Krishnamurthy, “The pitch competition received applications from 50 teams from 17 colleges representing 7 cities of Coimbatore region in Tamil Nadu and Kerala. These teams were coached by a diverse group of mentors from the Chapter. These mentoring sessions covered many enablers from pitching, presentation design, defining value proposition, financial models and many other aspects of entrepreneurship.”
The students were judged using a Business Model Canvas and a Business Plan Summary by a set of entrepreneurs. Each team then pitched real time for 10 minutes at the finale followed by a Q&A session by a jury panel including Bala Pachyappa, CEO, Sodion Energy, Dr Mahesh Rao, Professor, MIT, Mysuru, Aparna Chhajjed, Entprereneur, Pune and Swarup Nanda, CEO, Pencil Publishing, Mumbai.
In the semif-finals they were judged and mentored by Devika Ramesh, Karthikeyan Jawahar, Gunasegharan Krishnan and Nikhil Vikamsey who are entrepreneurs from Coimbatore. The event was hosted by TiE Charter Member Pradeep Yuvaraj who is also the Global PR Lead for the TiE University initiative. The business ideas ranged from Tech products to solutions for Covid-19 related challenges, displaying a wide range of entrepreneurial ideas from these future entrepreneurs.
Jury members had a tough time choosing the winner, but used an electronic tool created by TiE to enable them to make their decision in minutes, even though the events were all conducted virtually.
The Global Co-chair, Dr. Paul Lopez from TIE Atlanta, USA concluded the event saying, "We are trying to build an ecosystem that will foster the spirit of enterprise among students and make them better as individuals and future entrepreneurs.”