ARE YOU READY

Are You Ready is the business plan competition of TechTron that challenges university-level students to create sustainable, innovative solutions to some of the world’s most challenging problems and to survive with their technical expertise in this fast paced market.

In this entrepreneurial challenge two categorieshave been introduced to allow students to select their desirable domain.
You can register your ideas in the following categories:

  • Techno-preneurship
  • Socio-preneurship

Categories

Techno-preneurship
 Are you a student who …

  • ... hasearned or is in a process of earning bachelor degree in a technical field?
  • … wants to see your technical creations turned into a marketable product?
  • … would like the unique opportunity to manage your own business?

Then Techno-preneurship is the challenge suited for you!
With the technological advances steamrolling across today’s digital age igniting change in every industry, young engineers will likely be facing problems in the very near future. They can either Sink or Swim.
If you wish to swim you should know to market your idea, hence in this category we intend to enhance your technical as well as entrepreneurship skills.
This category allows you to present either your innovative idea that you always wished should be marketed or your final year project which is the core of bachelors program.

Socio-preneurship
This category is designed to recognize and showcase Social Innovations and Entrepreneurs hidden within the crowd.
Our initiative aims to bring sociopreneurs to limelight so that they are bestowed with opportunities of branding, networking, and making their presence felt, if not known. 
Any innovative idea even if it is not technical but can prove to be beneficial for the society is welcomed.

Venue: Civil a/v Hall
Date and time: 8th Sept,10.00-16.00


Eligibility Criteria:

  • All candidates must be enrolled in Undergraduate program of any HEC recognized university/institute of Pakistan.
  • Volunteers or organizers are not allowed to participate in the competition under any circumstances.

Registration Procedure:
All interested students must go through the following steps in order to register for Are You Ready in TECHTRON’14:

  • Fill in the online registration forms with your given details while making sure no required fields are left blank.
  • Complete the registration process by visiting the TECHTRON central office located in Electronics Department.
  • After submitting your required fees and completion of the registration process, you will be notified of your registration via text or email.
  • All fees are non-refundable. Any refund requests shall be disregarded.
  • Registration fees for Are You Ready shall be 1500 PKR per team.
  • Last date of registration would be August 31st 2014.
  • No forms shall be accepted after due date and failure in timely payment of registration will result in cancellation of your registration.

Specific Team Registration Requirements

Team Size:

The presenting team should include at least two students and not exceed four students. (At least two students must participate in the oral presentation of the business plan). Participants can register their ideas and teams in any one of the 2 categories by complying with the mentioned aspects of team dynamics (Aspirants to indicate positions i.e. CEO, CFO, CTO and Director Operations). 

General Rules and Regulations:

  • On the day of competition, all participants should bring their university cards as well as the registration slips.
  • Discipline during the competition should be followed at all times. Acts of disturbance or violence of any matter will render you disqualified from the competition.
  • All the relevant details of the participants once filled in the forms will be considered final and no changes shall be made.
  • Team members from different discipline/institutes are allowed.
  • Organizers reserve the right to change any rules and regulations without any prior notice. It is the job of the participants to keep in touch with the management and update themselves in this regard.
Specific Rules:
  • Teams are expected to conduct themselves in a professional manner at all times whilst on the event premises.
  • The dress code for business events is strictly formal.
Disqualification:
  • Teams are expected to cooperate with the event organizers at all times, any verbal or physical abuse will not be tolerated and may lead to immediate disqualification.
  • Any damage incurred to NED property or injury inflicted to host team/fellow delegates may lead to immediate disqualification.
Stages and Steps ofthe Competition

The overall process of the competition is as follows:

Round 1: Business Model Canvas.

A Business Model Canvas is a great way to put your ideas on paper before starting your entrepreneurial journey. This Round requires you to submit an Executive summary of your business plan.

Executive Summary Submission:

The final executive summary should be submitted on the deadline that will be provided later. Please submit the file in Adobe Acrobat PDF. No other format will be accepted. Files should be named according to the following format: ES_TeamName_UniversityName.pdf. Teams will be evaluated to compete based on the quality of the Executive Summary.

Guidelines for Executive Summary (ES)
  • ES should not be more than two-three pages: (typed, double-spaced, minimum 12 point font, and 1" margins on all sides). It covers the same topics a business plan. Write only a short paragraph on each of the topics.
  • You may skip some of the sections given below, if these are not relevant to your idea.

Please cover the following aspects

  • Overview: Briefly explain the fundamentals of your idea.
  • Market Need:What problems are you planning to solve or what unmet need you are going after?
  • Opportunity Size:"How big is this problem, i.e. how big is the target market?"
  • Competition:"Who are your competitors and how are they attempting to satisfy the need?"
  • Our Solution:"How are your product/services (your solution) going to be different from the competitors-What is your competitive advantage? I.e. proprietary advantage in the form of patents, trade secrets, trademarks, barrier to entry, etc.?"
  • Economic Benefit:"What is the value proposition of your solution or what is the economic benefit of solving that problem? - and can you quantify it?"
  • Current or Potential Customers: "Who are going to be your customers" Define the customer profile?
  • Business Model:"How are you going to make money and how will your product/service reach the end customer?"
  • Go to Market Strategy:"How do you plan to go to the market?" - Summarize your sales and marketing strategy, and explain why these plans are credible.
  • Our Team:"Who are the key people behind the venture and what are their credentials? Include all board members and key management people; what is your plan to hire key management people?" - Explain why you and your team are the right people to make the idea work.
  • Risks and Mitigation Strategy:Summarise, potential vulnerabilities of the business, what would make it not work and what will be outside your control? What is your mitigation strategy for these risks?
  • Future Milestones:Summarise and give timelines for the major milestones.
  • Financials:"What does the company expect to achieve in sales and profit (before tax) in years 1, 2, 3 and beyond? How much funding is needed (at various stages over the first 3 years)? And what are the uses to which these funds will be applied?
  • Exit Strategy: Future plans e.g. expand by bringing in a strategic partner, merge with another company, sell the company or go for IPO (Initial Public Offer).
Round 2: Innovation & Sustainability Challenge.

This round will provide qualifying teams a platform to present and discuss the operations of their business.

Teams should focus on the causes, types, solutions and any other aspect they think is relevant to the problem they are targeting. Teams can narrow down the problem to highlight one aspect of it or can depict the problem in general. Creativity in terms of both, ideas and execution, will be highly encouraged and will hold merit.

The Operations Director and CTO of the Teams will:

  • Give a detailed PowerPoint/Prezi presentation of their entrepreneurship venture with special focus on the sustainability of their project.
  • Participants will be allowed 5 minutes to present.

They will be awarded credit in accordance to a judging criterion which will include credit for the clarity with which the problem has been addressed, the logic behind the solution, and most importantly, how the social ventures can be sustained.

Round 3: Convincing the Capitalist.

In the Third round, the CEO and CFO of the teams will be required to:

  • Pitch their idea to our panel of highly qualified judges, discussing its marketability and its viability.
  • Teams will be judged on the originality and the long term prospects of their proposed business Idea.
  • Teams will be given 180 seconds to leave an impact and convince the judges why their idea truly has potential.

This round will include one-to-one discussion of the business plan.

Judges Evaluation Criteria

Judges should evaluate each team based on how convincingly they present their business concept, such that the judge would want to learn more about the idea as a potential investor. The best teams are those teams that an investor would want to schedule a follow-up meeting for further discussion because they believe this Team represents a strong investment opportunity.

The best teams should communicate the following:

  • Clear explanation of their product/service and the problem it solves (i.e., the customer need)
  • Sizable market opportunity and ability to penetrate that market
Note:
  • The judges' decision will be final and will not be open for contestation.
  • Certificates and lunch will be provided to all participants.

I hope that this entrepreneurship challenge inculcates in you the spirit of teamwork, the skills o f negotiation,the power of diplomacy and critical thinking.Let us make this experience an exciting one and add a bit of spice to it with some good old rhetoric.The team has poured its hopes and efforts into making the event a grand success. We will be looking for students with the best entrepreneurial ideas from all over Pakistan!

Hope you have a great experience!