High Schoolers Win TYE Regional Finals

Young high school students won the regional finals of TiE Young Entrepreneurs (TYE) award. TYE programme had an enthusiastic batch of over 110 students participating this year and 11 groups were selected for the regional finals.

Talking about this years’ performance Shaila Prabhu, TYE Lead, TiE Delhi-NCR, said, “This year the plans were outstanding and the students have raised the bar. The judges were extremely impressed with the quality of presentation and ideas which were presented on the finals of TYE Business plan competition. It was a very tough decision for the jury to make”.

An eminent jury selected the winners based on the following parameters; customer validation, execution or demonstration, business model - product-market fit, teamwork, presentation skills and presentation Q&A.

“TiE is doing what the traditional educational institutions could not inculcate in its curriculum. TYE should be integrated with the school education system and work with the education policymakers to include in the curriculum” said Sreenivasan.

Among the jury were, Syna Dehnugara, Features Editor, CNBC-TV18; Saurabh Jain, Vice President, Paytm Keshav Bansal, Director, Intex Technologies; Sreenivasan R, Chief Customer Officer, CL Educate; Akshay Khanna, Partner and Global Head, Avasant Labs and Rashi Varshney, Principal Correspondent, YourStory.

“The selection process was very fair and based on the important components for an entrepreneur, we covered everything while analysis every team,” said Rashi Varshney.

The following teams were declared as the winners of TYE 2018-19 based on their level of creativity and entrepreneurial skill set.

Team Phoolvari (Manvi Sidana, Vanshaj Chhabra, Eshan Goel, Shreyansh Jain, Anoushka Chakraborty & Stuti Saria)

Team Zap-E-Scrap (Prarthna Batra, Tarini Kapoor, Vaibhav Seth, Pranay Ahuja, Satyam Mehta, Anushka Bansal & Arjun Pajni)

Team Senior Saathi (Sarthak Gupta, Avii Ahuja, Manjeev Singh Sahni, Idhant Sood, Aditi Arora & Akshara Agarwal)

The jury members mentioned that Team Zap-E-Scrap was among the best presenters and were very professional. They also appreciated Team Phoolvari for their working business model. The team consisted of young students of class 9th and 10th.

TiE Young Entrepreneurs (TYE) is a global program run by The Indus Entrepreneurs (TiE) aimed at fostering the future generation of entrepreneurs by teaching high school students (Grades 9-12 or equivalent) the rewards and challenges of becoming an Entrepreneur.

Shaila Prabhu commented, “TiE Young Entrepreneur program is a fantastic program to introduce students to the realms of entrepreneurship by giving them hands-on experience and the reality of spearheading a start-up. I lead many other important initiatives for TiE Delhi-NCR, but the TiE Young Entrepreneur (TYE) program is very close to my heart. It is truly wonderful to see the enthusiasm, focus and vision towards leadership and job creation within the teams, which prepare the students for the real world”.

The program consists of 2 months of classroom sessions (Sunday, 1/2 day) on entrepreneurship and leadership along with various aspects of setting up and running a successful business venture. The students then brainstorm a business idea and prepare a plan for a Business Competition under the guidance of an assigned mentor, who is a CEO or a senior professional from the Industry. Teams then compete at the chapter level and the winning team will have the opportunity to compete at TYE Global Finals for cash prize and recognition.

The core objectives of TYE is:

• To provide an opportunity for a high school student to learn the challenges and rewards of entrepreneurship
• To Teach fundamental skills of entrepreneurship, of building and running a business
• To Promote qualities of risk-taking, leadership skills and innovation
• To instil the skills and traits of a successful entrepreneur in high school teens
• To provides life lessons and learnings that are essential in any walk of life: such as taking ownership, building alliances, seeking help and applying feedback, motivating a team, and working through challenging situations that arise while starting a new business.