Bengaluru students win APU's National Social Enterprise Idea Challenge

Bengaluru: The students of PES University, Bengaluru have won the 6th edition of Azim Premji University's National Level Social Enterprise Idea Challenge.

The Social Enterprise Cell of Azim Premji University organizes the Idea Challenge event every year with a purpose to provide students across India an opportunity to explore social entrepreneurship and share their innovative social impact ideas in a rigorous and competitive manner. The event also acts as a great networking platform for young minds to meet each other, exchange thoughts and showcase their talent and skills to some of the early stage mentors and funders.

In the 6th year of the event, more than 100 teams participated and submitted their innovative social impact models in the first round. The submissions were broadly in the domains of education, livelihood, health, sustainability and governance and 16 teams were shortlisted for the final round which was held in the university campus on 30 April.

The jury members for the event were Dr Gayathri Vasudevan, Executive Chairperson, LabourNet, Dr Suresh Nair, Chief Technology Advisor, Foundation for Innovation and Social Entrepreneurship, an initiative of Tata Trust and Dr Richa Govil, Director, School of Development, Azim Premji University.

Team Sitara from PES University, Bengaluru won the 1st prize. The team had Shriya Shankar, Srushti Jayaraman and Ananya V as members. Sitara is proposed to be a for-purpose non-profit organization working towards helping children from underserved communities become self-sufficient, through an equitable education. They want to leverage their processes through YouTube and WhatsApp, and use the power of local language communication, to bring about improved learning outcomes in the children.

The 2nd prize went to team Abyaan from College of Vocational Studies, Delhi University, comprising Riddhi Oberoi, Shrutika Gambhir, Arsh Bhatia and Pranav Hoon. Project Abyaan aims to address the problem of disposal of used cooking oil (UCO), which usually ends up blocking drainage pipes or sewers, contaminating landfills leading to soil pollution. They aim to use this to make soaps and other products. While the 3rd prize went to team Khwab from Ramjas College, Delhi with its members Manya Vats and Vanshikha Gourisaria. Khwab aims to fight the menace of plastic pollution and unsustainable consumption. They create a range of sustainable products for personal care, substantially reducing non-biodegradable waste. They make "zero-waste" alternatives to everyday alternatives like shampoo, deodorants, etc.

The mentor for the Social Enterprise Cell at Azim Premji University, Nazrul Haque noted that it is always encouraging to see that young students are disturbed by social issues around them and are not only complaining but actively thinking how can they contribute towards solutions. In the last 5 years, the Idea challenge event has become a brand name in the social enterprise ecosystem. Out of the 18 winning teams from the past 5 years, 11 have gone on to pursue their ideas after they completed their studies. The ones who do pursue the entrepreneurial journey benefit from the media coverage and the award resulting from the competition and most have gone on to receive additional financial or mentoring support from incubators and other organizations such as IIT Kanpur, IIM Bangalore, YCombinator etc.