Saurav Das, a student from IIT Kharagpur designed an innovative battery namedOORJA which won the first position at EUREKA –a business plan competition organized by IIT Bombay’s Entrepreneurship Cell (E-Cell). Several investors have already shown interest in the project. IIT Bombay was where the finals of the competition were held during Entrepreneurship Summit was held on Sunday. This team of third year students has prepared a lithium-ion battery which is based on the technique of cathode synthesis. It is effective, affordable and non-toxic as compared to the existing batteries.
According to Das, the turning point for them was in December when they had a mentoring session with the best venture capitalists and angel investors. Das and the group plan to sell their innovation to a niche market and for that a few companies have even contacted them. Based on the feedback that they will get from those companies they will get into production.
The team received Rs. 5 lakh as their prize money. The best three business plans selected would get a chance to represent India at the Intel-UC Berkeley Innovation Challenge in California. The top three technological based entries will also be given an incubation chance. According to E-Cell’s media manager, Digvijay Naik , E-Cell is planning to set up a panel of incubators to facilitate the participating teams access to higher incubation opportunities.
Two teams, Unicom and Bookmark Library shared the second position at Eureka. Each won Rs. 2.5 lakh. Shashank Singh Rathore , a second year student from Indian Institute of Foreign Trade said that they have fabricated the world’s only single chip tunable frequency power amplifier module mobile phones. It will articulate all technologies including CDMA, GSM and all range of frequencies in a single chip. And with no additional cost 3G and 4G could be accommodated and used globally.
Bookmark Library has made a unique unmanned book vending machine for busy place like coffee shops, airports and they plan to offer services in 3 modes- physical, online and tele medium.