Business plan competitions have been credited with facilitating a platform for budding entrepreneurs to woo prospective investors.
While such competitions seem to be catching on in the country, their impact is restricted to a few -- those who either dole out cash (venture capitalist) or receive funding. However, since 1999, a unique initiative -- Global Social Venture Competition (GSVC) -- is making its presence felt across the world.
GSVC, which is promoted by Haas Business School, Columbia Business School, London Business School and The Goldman Sachs Foundation, aims at encouraging social ventures that are profitable, sustainable and have a measurable impact as well.
The Indian School of Business (ISB), its affiliate in Asia, has been chosen to host the semi-final in the Asian region for GSVC 2006. The competition carries three awards with a cash prize of $25,000, $15,000 and $10,000, besides a special prize of $5,000 that details a new method for measuring impact of a social venture.
This is for the first time that GSVC is organising the Asian leg and being the affiliate for the competition in Asia, ISB will be hosting the Asia semi-final on its premises.
Speaking to Business Standard, V Chandrasekhar, Wadhwani Centre of Entrepreneurial Development at ISB, said, "The ISB was invited as an affiliate of GSVC 2005 to conduct the India semi-final round. This time, as a step forward, we have been asked to host the Asia semi-final." In 2005, of the 100 entries the competition received, around 30 were from India.
This time around, ISB has so far received 100 entries for the Asia semi-final, including eight from China and three each from Japan, Malaysia and Thailand, said S Subramonia Sarma, director, entrepreneurship development, ISB.
The last date for plan submission for the Asia semi-final round is Jan 11, 2006. These entries will then be screened and narrowed down to around 25.
The shortlisted teams will be invited to the ISB on January 28, 2006, for the semi-final round of which 10 will be sent from Asia for the global semi-finals, that will have 40 plans in total.
In the final round, 12 shortlisted plans will compete with each other at the Columbia Business School on April 7, 2006.
"For the Asia semi-final, we are planning to invite corporate representatives also so that if any plan interests them they can fund it for their own corporate social responsibility programmes," Sarma said.
So what is the criterion for participation?
"At least one team member (each team has 3-5 members) should be currently enrolled in any business school. He/she can also be an alumni of any business school provided he/she has graduated from such a school not more than two years prior to the submission of the plan," Sarma added.
Other requisites include strong potential for financial return on the plan besides a measurable social impact.
Some of the companies that have been formed based on such funding through GSVC are now involved in ventures ranging from marketing apparel made by women in Afghanistan to raising capital in the US for providing small-scale loans in Central America. The competition does not call for any participation fee from the teams.
