CHENNAI: The Indian Institute of Technology-Madras (IIT-M), Tata Consultancy Services and Lemelson Recognition and Mentoring Program (L-Ramp) are jointly hosting `Genesis,' a business plan contest open for students and NGOs in social entrepreneurship. It will essentially support innovative business ideas relating to social causes.

MIT IDEAS, United States (from the Massachusetts Institute of Technology and an NGO Aavishkar India Micro Venture capital fund are partners in the contest.

Teams participating in the contest will have to come up with a viable business plan from a socially relevant idea that will be self-sustaining. While students, individuals and NGOs interested in social causes can participate, each team is expected to have a representation for the student community up to 50 per cent.

Workshops

To explain the contest and as part of Genesis, a series of workshops will be conducted at IIT-Madras on January 13 and 14.

No entry free is charged but those interested should register online at (www.genesis.iitm.ac.in) . Seats for the workshops are limited. The workshops are also open to people who do not intend to participate in the competition, but would like to learn more about social entrepreneurship, a release on behalf of the Genesis organisers said, adding that the workshops would provide "valuable insight into social entrepreneurship and to demonstrate how an innovative business plan can address social problems effectively."

Leading social entrepreneurs from the United States, TCS, L-Ramp will address the workshops. Bases on the workshops, participating teams will conceptualise their business plans for "socially relevant themes" and submit executive summary by January 17.

Eight of these would be selected for the contest. The short-listed teams will publicly defend their final plan for evaluation by a panel of judges. The finals will be on February 26.

Winning teams in the Genesis competition will receive up to Rs.3 lakh as seed funding to implement their ideas.

The Genesis website has a section on collaboration to facilitate the participants to find team mates with complimentary ideas or skill sets.

For details, contact Ashwin Mahalingam, Visiting Assistant Professor, IIT-M, at 9840982190.

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