ISMU students with their certificate. Pix: Gautam Dey

Dhanbad, March 9: They have proved their mettle in the field of engineering. Now, they are showing that management is their cup of tea too.

Students of Indian School of Mines University (ISMU), Dhanbad, have scripted a success story by bagging the third position in a social entrepreneurship contest at IIT, Kharagpur. The competition, part of the Entrepreneurship Summit-09 at IIT, was held from January 9 to 11.

The ISMU team comprised Abhinav Kumar Srivastava, Satyendra Kumar Sinha and Anand Nadan Prasad — all first-year MBA students — and Nishit Kumar Srivastava, an MTech student.

More than 49 B-schools from across the country, including several A ++ grade institutes, participated in the contest, out of which 16 qualified for the final round. The ISMU team presented a business plan called Yatri Vishram Kutir on a service unit for tourists.

Abhinav, a graduate from Indira Gandhi National Open University whose brainchild was the plan, said that innovation and social benefits formed the crux of their 27-page plan. Satyendra and Anand, who dealt with the financial part of the project, added that they outdid the teams of 48 B-schools in the second stage only when their three-page synopsis got shortlisted. The final animatronics for the project was done by Nishit, who has completed BTech from SIET Allahabad College. The same project had won the third prize in the entrepreneurship awareness camp organised by the Union ministry of science and technology at ISMU last year.

A visibly exulted Abhinav said: “This is the first time that the students of the institute have succeeded in such a prestigious national level competition. We are happy that we were able to beat the students of premier B-schools.”