Patna, Dec. 9: A business graduate has developed a system which will help parents track their kids travelling on school buses and also watch them with the help of pictures or video.
Patna resident Kumar Nilay (20), who recently completed his bachelor in business administration from Indian School of Management in the city is one of 70 budding entrepreneurs who have been given a chance to pitch their ideas and discuss their plans before a panel of experts at a venture park-cum-incubation centre set up by Bihar Industries Association (BIA) and Indian Angel Network Incubator.
The industries department supports the programme.
Nilay's system will work on the basis of GPS (global positioning system) devices, closed-circuit television cameras and RFID (radio frequency identification) tags fitted in the students' identity cards.
Another such upcoming entrepreneur is Ujjwal Kumar, who has come up with the idea to develop a sound marketing system for agricultural produce, connecting rural and urban areas. Rahul Kumar Dubey has developed a concept to track shipment of goods.
These three youngsters are among many who have come up with ideas to manufacture magnetic engines, start online businesses or even trade in old books.
The presentations began today and will continue till Saturday. The start-ups were given 20-minute time slots to convince a seven-member expert panel, comprising eminent entrepreneurs from Bihar such as S.P. Sinha, KPS Keshri, Naresh Nandan, Vijay Goenka and Nishith Jaiswal and Indian Angel Network Incubator's manager Siddhant Singh Baid and Stanley Stephen. The session is designed to help aspiring entrepreneurs get feedback from the venture park about their direction and plans.
Start-ups with a solid foundation and business model will be selected and provided office space, business mentoring and planning, development services and products, connectivity to the market, advice on legal and intellectual property right issues, as well as assistance in fund raising.
As the expert panel assessed the ideas of entrepreneurs, former BIA president Keshri told The Telegraph: "Our focus while discussing the ideas is on the business model, revenue source, personality of the entrepreneur and the kind of team s/he has formed, and whether there is internal strength to see the proposal through."
BIA officials said around eight to 10 ideas could be selected after the discussions are over, if found viable, and the venture park would try provide help as per need.
"We will hand-hold them, but not spoon feed," Keshri added. "Our idea is to empower them to take suitable decisions when they are on their own in the market. Extra emphasis is on their revenue model and make them viable."
Siddhant Singh Baid said his team was impressed with the quality and variety of ideas brought for discussion. "I won't share the ideas because of intellectual property right issues but one of the youths came with an idea to develop a piston system to generate electricity with the help of rotational movement," he said. "If successful, it can replace diesel generators. There are solid business ideas in the field of organic farming."
