ISB to nurture startups

The Indian School of Business is creating a corpus to nurture start-up companies. The institute would host ISB alumni entrepreneurs on the campus for sometime and offer mentoring services for their business plans from the second quarter of 2009.

“In the first phase, about eight students would be mentored. We have sufficient funds to start grooming the entrepreneurs,” Krishna Tanuku, director of Wadhwani Centre for Entrepreneurship Development at the ISB, informs. Ex-students too would chip in with their contributions.

ISB is in the process of framing guidelines on the proposed initiative. It will also approach companies for supporting the students. There is also a proposal to provide grants to the entrepreneurs. However, this is still in nascent stages.

Meanwhile, the institute is compiling a database of its alumni who took to entrepreneurship to authenticate students’ projects. This would be ready in about two months.

A few of the ex-ISBian are supportive of the initiative and feel this will help students chart a career of their choice without much difficulty. Abid Ibrahim, an ISB alumnus and one of the founders of Innovation Labs, an engineering design company at Chennai, says addressing societal problems is a good way to begin.

Innovation Labs is working on a communication device for children with cerebral palsy. The team drew inspiration from a $6,000 (about Rs 3, 00,000) imported machine. The gadget, which has a scan software, a switch and a handheld device, costs about Rs 15,000.

Another entrepreneur Vivek Pahwa has started secondshaadi.com, a matrimonial site for divorcees, and thrives on a subscription model for revenues.

“The portal is a platform for exchanging views among the members for an exclusive community,” he says, adding the portal has 100,000 registered users. Pahwa also plans to offer offline services soon.