SPJIMR Student team wins the ‘Global Change Maker COVID-19 Innovation Award

June 16, 2020

SPJIMR student team of Yash Jain and Chaitanya Munjal, have won the “Global Change Maker COVID-19 Innovation Award” and a seed funding of $1000 at the Global Social Innovation Challenge (GSIC). Two teams from SPJIMR were amongst the 43 global finalists of the GSIC competition. Chaitanya and Yash’s Dr Nanoxa was one of the top 16 changemaker ideas.

Dr Nanoxa — Founded by Yash Jain (SYB alumnus) and supported by Chaitanya Munjal (PGDM 2nd Year), is a new age antimicrobial disinfectant infused with nanotechnology with proven long-lasting protection against contamination of microbes on surfaces.

The other team that was selected to represent SPJIMR in the GSIC competition comprised of PGDM 2nd year student, Triparna Chakraborty’s Trimaya Traditionals which works for the socio-economic inclusion for rural artisans. The sole premise of Trimaya is to support exploited weavers, increase their earnings and efficiency and connect them to the market directly.

GSIC Fowler is an international competition, in its 10th year and invites student entrepreneurs from all over the world. With current year stats, it is expected that more than 40 Universities from 18+ countries and almost 1000 teams have participated in GSIC Fowler. This year, the event was at University of San Diego. Some of the projects that have been presented there have become global change makers. After an elaborate in-country drive, the selected teams travel to the United States to compete with businesses and projects from all over the world. This year the event was held online due to the COVID19 pandemic.

This year’s event was special with its focus on addressing UN Sustainability Goals – this was a unique initiative where one needed to balance Innovation, Social Impact and a keen business sense.

Prof Kaustav Majumdar and the entire team including SPJIMR’s ADMAP committee got down to the business of shortlisting teams that would represent the institute in the competition. Eventually, 20 projects and businesses were shortlisted. After a number of knowledge sessions and workshops and eventually, through a rigorous & careful selection, 9 of some of the most promising Social Enterprises of the Institution were shortlisted.

Teams were from the following programs – PGDM, PGPM, SYB/GYB, FMB, EMBA. These student-led ventures received rigorous mentoring from SPJIMR’s Startups, Incubation & Acceleration Cell, including various workshops, 1on1 sessions and attended the cell’s various events, including Beta Start 2020.

A selection process was setup which led to a semi-final list of 7 teams. A panel was set up with some of SPJIMR professors and an expert from the industry (an alumnus). The panel reviewed the ideas of all the teams and selected the two teams, Trimaya Traditionals and Dr Nanoxa, to represent SPJIMR at the GSIC competition.

For 2 months, SPJIMR professors supported these 2 teams constantly and brought clarity to their minds, shaped their pitch and helped them practice. They were given guidance in refining their business plans, in identifying how well did their approach solve the problem, how was this communicated, how was it organized and so many other aspects – a journey that completely transformed the outlook of the participants. Esteemed members were invited to be panellists for several internal rounds of reviews that took place and each venture was critiqued from several angles. With rigorous precision and sharp delivery, founders of each venture had to convince the GSIC Panel Members of what sustainable change their social venture would deliver – all in a limited time of 15 minutes provided to each of them.

This has been a fabulous journey for SPJIMR’s Startups, Incubation & Acceleration Cell. They are especially grateful to Prof Nirja Mattoo, Prof Prem Chandrani, Prof Suranjan Das, Prof Chitradeep Aras, Prof Ranjan Banerjee, Prof Sushmita Srivastava, Prof Lata Dhir, Prof Chandrika Parmar, Prof Vineeta Dwivedi and Prof Kaustav Majumdar for their support, guidance and blessings in the entire process and hope that next year’s participants get to travel to Twin Cities, Minneapolis, in 2021, the next venue for the event.

#IamSPJIMR #CourageHeart

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