PAST HIGHLIGHT
2018
In its 9th edition, Meraki has continued to grow in stature with an increasing outreach to student entrepreneurs across India and seemingly better quality business plans. This year witnessed a heart-warming response with registrations from 262 teams and submission of business plans from 82 teams (representing more than 500 students) from various colleges across the country. Out of these, 13 Teams qualified for the final round where each team is required to present their business plan to an eminent jury panel comprising top entrepreneurs and VC’s of India.
Meraki 2019 was successfully conducted on 7th March 2019. MERAKI Finals are a culmination event of the Meraki Business Plan Competition. It was a unique opportunity for the Top 13 finalist teams to present their business plans to a panel of distinguished judges (real-life angel and venture capital investors with experience of having funded 100’s of ventures across various sectors and geographies). Each of the Top 3 winning ventures was awarded a Meraki fellowship that acts as seed funding for the ventures.
Judges
Amit Khosla, Founder
Valtrust Capital
Mr. Ashish
Jain, Partner,
WaterBridge Ventures
Manish
Kheterpal, Partner,
WaterBridge Ventures
Nilesh
Balakrishnan, VC,
WaterBridge Ventures
Aishwarya Sriram, VC,
WaterBridge Ventures
Sriram Ganesh
Babu, VC,
WaterBridge Ventures
Samir
Aggarwal Analyst,
WaterBridge Ventures
Winners of the 2020 Meraki
- iTantra (FIIB, Delhi) – INR 150,000
- Nirmalya (IIT, Delhi) – INR 100,000
- WLoops (IIT, Kharagpur) – INR 50,000
Team 1
DIME, National Institute of Technology, Karnataka
Description: Water scarcity is a huge problem in India. Even if water is available, there is the issue of contamination. This is particularly severe in certain areas where there is lack of groundwater, resulting in illness. So the team come up with a solution of water disinfection & purification system using silver and copper nano-particles involving impregnated coconut shell waste carbon. In summary A water disinfection & purification system using silver and copper nano-particles involving impregnated coconut shell waste carbon.
Team 2
HOMEFIX, Dehradun Institute of Technology University (DIT)
Team Members: Vishesh Gupta, Rashi Gupta
Description: Connecting Furniture manufacturers with Designers/Architects. A B@B platform where designers/architects/hotels/restaurants can directly connect with furniture manufacturers.
Team 3
DIME, National Institute of Technology, Karnataka
Description: Water scarcity is a huge problem in India. Even if water is available, there is the issue of contamination. This is particularly severe in certain areas where there is lack of groundwater, resulting in illness. So the team come up with a solution of water disinfection & purification system using silver and copper nano-particles involving impregnated coconut shell waste carbon. In summary A water disinfection & purification system using silver and copper nano-particles involving impregnated coconut shell waste carbon.
Team 4
SPECable, Sardar Patel Institute of Technology
Team Members: Pratik Rathi, Tanay Kulkarni, Atul Chitanvis
Description: The problem diagnosed in children is learning disabilities. For the same they come up with a product its a spex with a camera records videos and captures images which will be sent to cloud server for further processing Dynamic text recoĀnition of imaĀes and text to speech for assistive readinĀ which can be heard simultaneously with text usinĀ speakers. Dynamic spelling check of user writing using datasets in the cloud server. And text to speech and spelling errors replayed through the speakers.
Team 5
Kaathkuni Himalayan Institute of Alternatives, Ladakh
Team Members: Hari Chand Dhali, Sarabdeep Singh Manchanda, Abhijeet Mandals
Description: Grange Road is automobile garage aggregator based out of Delhi NCR, we have more than 1200 Garages in Delhi NCR and we also have our pilots running in Lucknow, Jaipur & Agra. Our monthly revenue is 6-8 L per month and currently we are bootstrapped and would love to expand and connect with the right mentors and team to scale our business further.
Team 6
Book A Plant from Sri Guru Gobind Singh College of Commerce
Team Members: Ashleen Kohli, Mudit Kandal, Deepanshu Kansal, Yashwik Ahuja
Description: Book A Plant is an online venture that connects plant vendors and potters to customers through a website, directly delivering plants at their doorstep. The customer gets to order the plants at the comfort of their homes and the feature to customize their plant by selecting from a variety of stylish yet affordable pots available at the website. The website also offers after-sales services like maintenance packages to ensure the well being of the products. With the feature of Vertical Gardening, Book A Plant has successfully expanded into an array of plant products, thus becoming a one-stop solution for all the plant-related needs of the customer.
Team 7
iTantraFIIB, New Delhi
Team Members: Rashi Rathore, Nimish Jain
Description: Eyecan is built with the primary purpose to help individuals with a visual impairment. Our purpose is to be able to build technology to assist the interaction of the impaired with their external environment. An algorithm that is an amalgamation of Artificial Intelligence and IoT tools, we develop commodities that would provide an ease with certain everyday tasks and capacitate their will to work without assistance.
Due to the absence of any help, there comes a certain difficulty to go about regular activities such as crossing a road or finding their way out of a busy area. We wish to motivate them and make them less vulnerable while traversing though tasks as basic as reading. We intend to improve on challenges that haven’t bridged the technological gaps yet, to provide appropriate help to the afflicted. We believe in creating value for our customers, and equip them in a way that they can proudly say ‘i-can’.
Team 8
Sanrakshak, Vellore Institute of Technology (VIT), Vellore
Team Members: Amartya Jha
Description: To provide utmost safe and secure railway journey to our fellow passengers by attaching our robust and affordable sensors beneath the engine of the train which provides real time data about the occurrence of cracks or any kind of faults on the railway line and ultimately offers a holistic end to end solution to the government.
Team 9
Sere, Hansraj College, New Delhi
Team Members: Vivek Verma
Description: Massive decline in principal earnings’ of kiranas due to heavy competition; inviability in competing with modern retail prices and product variety, lack of technology adoption; limited infrastructure and non standardised experience with variable discounting restrict customer reach/scale. Sere brings factory priced branded medicines and supplements to your trusted kiranas directly from manufacturers/distributors.
Team 10
Advo.cop, St. Xavier’s college, Mumbai
Team Members: Elton Pereira, Salace Lobo, Leon Rodrigues
Description: ‘advo.cop’ is a cloud based Dynamic Digital advertising model. We give the advertisers the perfect opportunity to reach the consumers at/near the point of purchase. They can strategically place your message in front of millions of shoppers around malls, consumers of a service and events, giving advertisers an opportunity to reach a highly captive audience. They are not restricted to static advertising but open to dynamic advertising as well. Be it – launching a product, explaining a service, presenting your Brand or offering the discount.
