MSME Idea Hackathon 3.0 First Stage Evaluation

28^th August 2023: The BSSS Incubation Centre organized Stage One Evaluation of MSME Idea Hackathon 3.0 (Women) on 28^th August 2023 from 10:00 am onwards. The third edition of Idea Hackathon was announced by MSME in the last week of June with a prize money of fifteen lakh rupees for every innovative winning idea and this time it was especially for Women Innovators and Entrepreneurs. The objective of the Hackathon this time was to promote and motivate women into entrepreneurial practice in India and it was open for Indian Women above the age of eighteen. The Bhopal School of Social Sciences is a recognized Host Institute under MSME’s Innovative Scheme, for which in every edition BSSS receive applications from around India through a dedicated portal. For these received ideas, HI is responsible to evaluate the ideas in the first stage by forming an evaluation committee of minimum three and maximum five experts from various sectors. The applicants have to present their innovative Start-up idea to the committee which will be judged by them on different criteria of innovation. The applications found innovative and feasible will be forwarded to MSME through the portal, the further four stages will be evaluated by MSME at their end. The ideas will have to pass every stage to receiving funding of fifteen lakhs from MSME, the funding which will be received by the respective His to be utilized in development of the Start-up or the prototype.

BSSS received twenty-six applications this time from three different states of India with twenty-four from various district of Madhya Pradesh and one each from Chhattisgarh and Delhi. Five of the applicants were current and previous students of the BSSS college. The ideas received were also from different sectors of Healthcare, Agriculture, Education, Ai and some more product and service sectors.

For the first stage evaluation a committee was formed by identifying experts from different sectors and were invited by the BSSS which composed of the following members:

For presenting the ideas in first stage evaluation, the applicants were invited to present physically in the BSSS Incubation Centre, with some of them permitted to present the idea virtually due to their circumstances. The women applicants presented their ideas individually or with their group which consisted of women and as per the time slots allotted to them. For presenting each applicant were allotted with fifteen minutes time, of which eight was for presenting and seven was for QnA with the committee. Out of the received applications, five applicants were absent due to some unavoidable reasons and couldn’t present their idea. After listening to all the ideas, the committee shortlisted ten ideas of the twenty-six received applications, which have been forwarded to MSME for further evaluation stages. Four of the shortlisted ideas are from the students of The BSSS college itself, which are nurtured by the BSSS Incubation Centre.

As the shortlisted ideas have been forwarded to the MSME, for the final winners’ announcement we have to wait until the MSME conducts all the stages and announce the winners. If any of the ten ideas shortlisted by the committee formed by the BSSS, the ideas have to nurtured and developed under the BSSS Incubation Centre.