Entrepreneurship Cell IIT Kharagpur has launched Empresario 2019 in association with the prestigious International Business Model Competition (IBMC) which is co-hosted by Stanford, Harvard and Brigham University.

Empresario is the official qualifier to IBMC from India. The best entries in all categories will get a sponsored trip & direct entry in the quarter-finals of IBMC 2019, which will be conducted abroad. ((Visit www.ecell-iitkgp.org/empresario/ for more details).

The shortlisted entries are provided immense help in terms of mentorship and the winners also get a much sought after chance to pitch their ideas in front of some of India’s biggest Venture Capitalists and investors.

Empresario participants are mentored and supported by organisations like TiE, NEN(National Entrepreneurship Network), etc. Startup Services like legal advice, taxation, financial, technical aspects of running a startup, co-working space, HR needs, incubation opportunities, etc. are provided.

Empresario accepts business ideas in all fields which include Product and Service, Product Design and Social categories. Each of the entries get equal opportunity to win the prize of INR 25 Lakhs and incubation money to the tune of INR 2.5 crore. Previously, Empresario has been launched in association with Calcutta Angels, Villgro, Indian angel Network and many more.

Entrepreneurship Cell, IIT Kharagpur is a student organisation established with the aim of fostering the spirit of entrepreneurship among college students in India. It is one of the most successful entrepreneurial organisations in the country with over 60 start-ups incubated within 10 years of  inception.

For the first round of Empresario, interested candidates will be required to fill up a questionnaire that captures about their Business idea and submit it.  This questionnaire can be found on www.ecell-iitkgp.org/empresario . If participants register now, they can avail the Early Bird privileges, which include extended mentoring and offline mentoring session during Entrepreneurship Awareness Drive (EAD ) 2018

Some of the past student startups who were winners at Empresario are:-

• Swagene – Swagene is transforming healthcare by pioneering personalized medicine. If you’re a doctor or patient, you stand to benefit enormously in terms of time, money and precious health!
• JANCH Healthcare – Janch is a mission to provide personalized, high-quality diagnosis solution on an as-needed or preventative basis
• Gamezop – It let’s you play more than 100 games by installing just one app. It also uses HTML5 to allow users play offline. It recently raised a seed funding of $350,000.

The IIT Kharagpur flagship event – Global Entrepreneurship Summit (GES), the largest collegiate entrepreneurial summit in India is held every year in January.  The final rounds of Empresario 2018–2019 will be held during GES’19.