Global Social Venture Competition at ISB
The Indian School of Business (ISB) will play host to the Asia regional round of the Global Social Venture Competition during March 20-22, 2009. The GSVC is a business plan competition which aims to promote entrepreneurial businesses that satisfy the following two criteria:
- the plan should have a clear and quantifiable social objective
- it should be financially sustainable through revenue generation.
The winners at the regional round get to go to Berkeley to present their business plan in front of a global judging panel. The top three plans at the global round will share a prize of $50,000. Teams also get an opportunity to interact with venture capitalists and academicians who support social ventures.
For the Asia regional round, ISB received around 50 business plans from 5 countries, out of which 18 have been short listed for the presentations on March 20-22. Some of the plans that have been short listed include innovative ideas such the entry from NMIMS Mumbai called ‘SRAVN’ which aims to provide biodegradable, low- cost sanitary napkins to poor women. Among other entries is one from the University of Hong Kong called ‘SeedImpact’ which is an online platform to link MFIs and retail investors such that the MFIs have access to funds below market interest rates. Four business plans from the home team have been selected at the preliminary rounds. The other competitor plans are from TISS, IIM Indore, BITS Pilani, SIESCOMS Mumbai, BNU Beijing, NCCU Taiwan, SPJIMR Mumbai, CUHK Hong Kong and International Space University, Strasbourg, France.
(February 25, 2009)
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