The New Year promises a push for bright young minds with a yen for doing something on their own.

The West Bengal chapter of TiE (The Indus Entrepreneurs), a global non-profit organisation focused on promoting entrepreneurship, is presenting TiEger II, the sequel to The TiEger Awards 2006, the “first-ever awards for entrepreneurs in eastern India”, on February 1 and 2, 2008.

“We’ve introduced bottom-of-the-pyramid (BoP) awards and are bringing in international experts to attend a mentoring conclave,” said Shoummo K. Acharya, the president of the TiE Calcutta chapter.

TiE is running a business plan contest in 49 colleges in Bengal, from which 35 youngsters “with an entrepreneurship spark” will be brought to Calcutta for the conclave.

The awards will have three categories — five TiEger awards for city-based entrepreneurs with a minimum turnover of Rs 2 crore, three TiEger BoP awards for the district candidates and two TiEger Cub awards.

“We have a tie-up with the department of science and technology and NEN, the entrepreneurship network of Wadhwani Foundation. IIM Calcutta and IIT Kharagpur are also partners,” says Sridar Iyengar, ex-president, TiE Global.

Formed in the Silicon Valley in 1992 by NRI entrepreneurs and professionals mainly from South Asia, TiE offers advice and assistance to budding entrepreneurs.

TiE’s city drive to sell entrepreneurship as a career option will be buoyed by US enterprise. Phillip C. Holland, the founder of Yum-Yum Donuts in California, will be in town on January 24 to share with the TiE candidates his MOBI (my own business incorporated) programme.

The Kauffman Foundation, along with the US department of commerce, has chosen TiE as a partner for an entrepreneurship workshop in Calcutta in February.

It is learnt that US consul-general Henry Jardine will share the presentation of the Driving Entrepreneurship Growth recommendations with state industry secretary Sabyasachi Sen on February 1.