CHENNAI: Wondering how to start a business? Or where to get the money for that start-up you have been planning with your friends?

Register for the Business Plan Contest in Social Entrepreneurship, jointly organised by Tata Consultancy Services and Indian Institute of Technology-Madras.

In the second and revised edition of Genesis, students, professionals, innovators and non-governmental organisations can take part. All you need is to ensure that half the team consists of students. Innovative ideas for start ups in a variety of areas ranging from education and health to alternate energy will be examined by judges from the academia and the industry.

Business plans

In the second stage, the business plans will be fine tuned through workshops and various other mentoring processes leading to the grand finale and the Rs. 3 lakh award.

Only 10 per cent of the seed funding, said the organisers, would be handed over upfront to the winning team. The rest of the funding would be based on the interest levels and genuineness shown by the participants, IIT-M faculty Ashwin Mahalingam told the media on Monday.

Funding and fine tuning of ideas to projects, he said, would not be an issue what with Genesis having a host of sponsors, including Aavishkaar India Micro Venture Capital Fund; MIT Ideas, Massachusetts Institute of Technology, Rural Innovations Network and Lemelson-Recognition and Mentoring Programme for Innovators.

According to dean V.G. Idichandy, the educational aspect of the contest lies in workshops and the mentoring process, which would start from early January and continue till the last stage in February 2007.

TCS chief technology officer K. Ananth Krishnan said the social entrepreneurship movement was starting to gather momentum.

Within a couple of years, the initiative would help spread awareness of the importance of pursuing entrepreneurship as seriously as academic pursuits, added Professor Idichandy. For registration and other details, log onto www.gensis.iitm.ac.in

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