Out of the box

Out of the box

Recently, the Pune chapter of Techstars Startup Weekend was held and the event witnessed a huge turnout.  From college dropouts to experienced professionals, there were more than 70 registrations from across India.

Techstars simultaneously held the Startup Weekend in 18 countries. It boasts of 450k+ alumni, 15k+ organisers and it has been a success in 1800+ cities globally. This initiative has given birth to a number of success stories like Easy Taxi, Giftstarter, Rover, Launchrock, Hidrate, Zapier, Beardbrand, Haiku Deck, etc.

Fifty-four hours of experiencing the highs and lows, fun and pressure that goes into building and operating a startup kept The Daftar, Baner, buzzing with activity earlier this month. Apart from meeting industry experts, forming a community, and associating with investors, co-founders and sponsors, the aspiring entrepreneurs got to connect, discover, learn and start a startup!

After picking the top 10 project ideas from the 47 ideas proposed, the participants formed 10 teams and started the brainstorming on day one. Staying in The Daftar facility, they interacted and ideated for 54 hours straight without any outside interference. On day two, the participants got to pick their mentors for the day and receive their expert guidance. After getting a briefing on how startups function and how the presentations are supposed to take place, they performed a mock presentation in front of the mentors on the final day.

The final day had an impressive panel of judges including Corina B Manuel, founder and artistic director of Withanelle Inc; Gagan Sial, co-founder of the fastest growing QSR chain in India, Rolls Mania; and Manish Gupta, chairman of Chrysalis Business Consultancy Pvt Ltd, author, life coach and a business coach. 

Startup Weekend helped the individuals to network, work on a project, pitch an idea in 60 seconds and create a cross-functional team to work with over an interesting weekend. It culminated with a dinner celebrating all the hard work and success, and the winning team and two runner ups were also announced.

WINNING TEAM: AUTO AUDIT
Team members: Avigyan Kumar, Shailesh Mendhekar, Pratik Deshmukh, Huzefa Lokhandwala, Ajinkya Khalate and Ashutosh Saitwal

Idea: An artificial intelligence product that helps financial auditors and enterprises to detect inconsistency and possible frauds. This is done by automating the interpretation of documentary evidence and verifying it against the books of accounts. Automated evidence data extraction from unstructured evidence documents, verification and analysis.  

FIRST RUNNER UP: OPP-VANCE
Team members: Saiprasad Bhatawdekar, Govind Dhone, Pratap Basutkar, Rohan Athawade, Shreya Sharma, Shrija Valia and Vidit Chokshi

Idea: OppVance helps companies find their readymade market right now by identifying companies and contracts that are being awarded in their areas of interest. Hence, sales efforts and time can be focused on pursuing clients that are winning clients rather than finding clients. They shall provide detailed and simplified insights about multi-million dollar projects and contracts available within the area of interest, companies that are winning and can win contracts in the future.

SECOND RUNNER UP: PANTRY TO PARCEL
Team members: Vidisha Wagle, Kartik Kumar, Saumya Mohinani, Harika Challa and Yash Dave

Idea: The idea is to save time and money by creating a Trivago like site for food delivery. A one- stop destination for a consumer to compare rates and select an affordable restaurant to order food from. It saves one the time and need to open multiple applications individually to check food items, restaurants and their best prices.

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