National, 29th September 2021: CII – Centre for Innovation and Incubation incepted by Utkal University, one of the oldest universities in India (based in Odisha) announces the launch of iDeathon M2M 2021 for aspiring entrepreneurs to pitch their innovative business ideas. The selected start-up founders will get selected for Upakram Incubation Program to kick start their entrepreneurial journey with like-minded catalysts.
As part of iDeathon M2M 2021, the 3 best ideas will get a cash award from the incubation centre. In addition, the centre will also provide pre-incubation support to the best 20 ideas, prototype grants for best 5 ideas after Pre-Incubation. The start-ups with the most innovative ideas will also be connected to the centre’s expansive network of investors.
Delighted with the launch, Dr. Manisha Acharya, CEO of CII said, “Through iDeathon M2M 2021, we are looking for breakthrough ideas and handhold them from creating a powerful business model to a winning investor pitch. Additionally, Utkal University’s research lab and CII will play a critical role together in transforming a nascent stage idea to a full-fledged start-up with a go-to-market strategy.”
Commenting on the launch of the start-up launch pad program, Prof. Sabita Acharya, Vice-Chancellor, Utkal University said, “The Centre for Innovation and Incubation at Utkal University is giving a jumpstart to our Start-Up Incubation program through its maiden Ideathon program “iDeathon M2M 2021”. We have decided to pole vault our steps to quickly attain traction in our objective to position our Center as an epi-center of Start-Up activity in the state and entire eastern and north-eastern India.”
CII aims to promote and nurture the culture of Innovation and Entrepreneurship in new-age founders. To build a disruptive start-up ecosystem, the centre also announces the launch of the Upakram Incubation Program, a 6 months (24 weeks) game-changer Launch pad program for start-ups at the ideation stage. It gives entrepreneurs at the nascent stage the right platform to validate their idea and move forward to develop it into a marketable Minimum Viable Product (MVP) and viable business model.
Upakram Incubation Program focuses on providing necessary technical support, right mentoring and creating the right platform for networking, while preparing them for understanding the technical feasibility of the idea proposed. The program will also provide a one-month pre-incubation training to cover problem understanding and identification, idea generation, evaluation and validation, developing Business Model Canvas and structured inputs on ideation to implementation.
Furthermore, to have a go-to-market strategy in place, the pre-incubation training will also cover product-market fit analysis, market analysis (Know your market), customer analysis (Know your customer) and Revenue Streams. The start-ups will also get extensive support from CII mentors in developing a robust business plan out of ideas and fine-tuning of pitch presentationsto gain investors’ interest.
The registration for iDeathon M2M 2021 is open for Students, Innovators, Early-stage start-ups, Faculty, Research Scholars, individuals or team of up to 4 individuals in the arena of Agriculture, Food, Green Technology, Eco-Tourism, Herbal & Nutraceutical, Circular Economy, Renewable Energy, Rural Technology, IT & ICT, FINTech, Affordable Healthcare, EduTech and many among others.
The selection of the most innovative start-up ideas will be done by industry leaders, experts, Investors, officials from Govt forums including MSME/DST/Start-up council. The last date of registration is October 20, 2021 and the results will be declared on October 30, 2021.