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In furtherance of its objective of helping entrepreneurs convert their ideas into businesses, NSRCEL has been engineering many forms of collaboration between IIMB students and prospective entrepreneurs to bring to bear high quality inputs in the early stages of the venture. One such collaboration is in the form of short academic projects, to be carried out by PGP (MBA) students in teams, addressing the specific task of converting the entrepreneur’s ideas into a bankable business plan that could be presented to a professional investor for feedback. Over the last two years, projects undertaken in this mode have proved to be very beneficial to entrepreneurs and start ups.

A typical project that would qualify under this program is one where the entrepreneur has developed a unique idea, backed up preferably by an IP or an equivalent, and is ready to take the idea to the market. The broad scope of the project would be to identify and assess the relevant market for the idea, develop a business scenario with due considerations to all the factors like technology, competition and value proposition to the customers, working out the economics of the business, and building a case for investment to the potential investor. This broad scope, with appropriate modifications taking into account the specifics of the idea proposed, will be translated into the terms of reference for the team of students who will be assigned to undertake the project. The output of the project will be evaluated and graded as part of the curriculum for the students.

Proposals are invited from 1) technology entrepreneurs who have developed or in the final stages of developing unique technology based ideas that can be commercialized and taken to the market and 2) other entrepreneurs with a conceptually well developed idea whose viability is ready to be explored further in terms of developing a business plan. For those business idea which have a broader global scope, NSRCEL will try and engage a complementary team from Ross Business Scholl, University of Michigan to join the IIMB team and carry out this project jointly. Such decisions will be made after the commencement of the project and will be subject to feasibility and the interest expressed by teams from Ross Business School to participate in the project.

The proposer should commit, as the project sponsor, to provide all the necessary inputs, information and guidance to the project team in timely manner. The projects will be carried out under the guidance of a NSRCEL faculty member (Prof. K. Kumar) and will also receive guidance form an expert mentor identified and assigned specifically for each project. The final output will be presented for evaluation to a panel of experts which will include a professional investor.

Acceptance of the proposals under the program will depend on the availability of students interested in working on the project and on the scope of the project being in line with the academic requirements of NSRCEL and IIMB. The proposals in the prescribed format should be mailed to nsrcel@iimb.ernet.in before 30 July 2010.

For project proposal format, click here

http://www.nsrcel.org/home/files/projectproposalFormat.docx

A response to the proposal will be sent to the sponsor before 6 August 2010