Indian Institute of Technology Mandi’s Technology Business Incubator is hosting the fifth edition of its Annual Flagship Event, Himalayan Start-up Trek (HST) on December 11 and 12, 2021. Start-ups, innovators and aspiring entrepreneurs can participate in challenges and get an opportunity to win cash prizes worth Rs 5 lakh and funding opportunities of up to Rs 50 lakh during the event. The last date to apply is November 25.
In its fifth edition, HST 2021 will host the ‘HST Start-up Grand Challenge’ — a start-up pitch competition in three thematic areas. The New Age Alliance for Human-Computer Interaction with a prize money of Rs 2 lakh, The Foothill Innovators Challenge to Build for the Himalayas with a prize money of Rs 1.25 lakh and The Habitable World Challenge for Environment and Sustainability with a prize money of Rs 2 lakh.
The event aims at bringing together the stakeholders of the Indian start-up ecosystem and providing a platform to young entrepreneurs to pitch their ideas for incubation support and to raise funding. The event is supported by HP Center for Entrepreneurship Development of HP Industries Department. Applications can be filled on the event website.
Inviting the aspiring entrepreneurs to participate in Start-up Grand Challenge, Prof Puran Singh, Faculty-in-charge, IIT Mandi Catalyst, said, “HST has been the gateway to Catalyst’s incubation program for start-ups from across the country. We are building capacity and expertise in these three areas and intend to handpick committed start-ups to support.”
The New Age Alliance — Human-Computer Interaction theme of HST Start-up Grand Challenge will focus on usage of the computer’s intelligence and computation capabilities in decision-making, prediction, estimation, communication, and processing. Under this theme, participants can pitch in their ideas related to brain-computer interaction, assistive technologies to aid and enhance human functioning and decision-making, use of advanced technologies to enhance the cognitive abilities of humans and use of computer’s intelligence to aid human decision-making, prediction, communication, and processing.
The Foothill Innovators Challenge — Build for the Himalayas theme will revolve around addressing the issues relevant to the local terrain, population, environment, ecology, or focus on taking local products and offerings to the world by building supply chains, storage, or building capacity at different value chain levels. Start-ups and aspiring entrepreneurs can participate under this theme with their ideas related to hill road safety, disaster prevention, and management; demand and supply-side challenges to Himalayan agriculture; Vocal for local — interventions to scale local products and services; and rural development — education, skill training, and employment.
The Habitable World Challenge — Environment and Sustainability aims to enable start-ups and innovators who strive to make the world a more livable and habitable place for all species. The specific problem statements of interest under this theme include clean & renewable energy, waste management, e-vehicles, green solutions, recycling, and natural resource management. Climate change is also included under this ambit. Start-ups, innovators and aspiring entrepreneurs working in this sector or budding entrepreneurs can pitch their ideas related to renewable and clean energy solutions, waste management and recycling and any other solution in line with the UN Sustainable Development Goals.
IIT Mandi Catalyst has supported over 160 start-ups in a range of sectors including clean energy, healthcare, enterprise management, agriculture, manufacturing, biotech, education, and consumer internet. Till date, Catalyst has disbursed or committed over Rs 6 crore for prototyping and commercialisation purposes to the start-ups.
