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13 Years of Eureka!

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Launch of Eureka!
Eureka! 1999
A student's mind is forever buzzing with ideas and overflowing with creativity, yet
entrepreneurship is not one of the conventional options that you expect to find in
the list of career choices of a fresh graduate.
The initiation of this entrepreneurship "revolution" started with a workshop
Enterprise, as a part of Techfest 1999, which introduced an average IITian to the
world of start-ups or in other way to convert an idea into a money spinning
venture. After such an initiative, a need was felt to carry on this process by
providing a platform where teams could bring their plans for evaluation by an
experienced panel of venture capitalists, entrepreneurs and representatives from
academia and industries and this is how Eureka came into existence in 1999 with a
50 teams competing in its first edition.
Eureka 2000
Eureka! 2000, in its second edition, was a bigger success than its predecessor in
terms of its gaining cooperation from international organizations like TIE(The
Indus Entrepreneurs) and personalities like Kanwal Rekhi. The number of teams
entering now grew over a hundred.
The competition saw its first achievement with the winner of the competiton
myzus.com went on to get funding and was valued over six million dollars within a
year and also got listed in Business Today's Top 10 for Tomorrow later in 2002.
http://www.myzus.com

Eureka 2001
http://web.archive.org/web/20020617212701/http://www.iitb.ac.in/~ecell/eurekapr
evious.html
Eureka 2001,just after a three years of its launch became a huge success with
around 50 colleges from participating and the total number of entries going up to
300. It came to be recognized as one of the biggest competition of its kind in Asia
by the CNN news channel.
It was for the first time that Eureka! was offer a free incubation for the winning
teams for over a year from IndiaCo in Pune, and from The Enterprise Network,
from Silicon Valley.
The total value of Prizes offered over $2,50,000, or over Rs.1 Crore.
Winner of the Competition - einfinitus (team comprising of IIT Bombay students)
later set up a company which was valued over $45 million

Eureka! 2002
Into its fourth year, Eureka! now had served as a launch pad to many of the great
ideas all across the country.It was for the first time that Eureka!2002 went
international inviting entries from all over the world and became The International
Business Plan Competition
For the second consecutive year Free Incubation for one year at TEN in silicon
valley and IndiaCo at Pune (depending on the team's choice) was offered to the
winning team.

Eureka 2003

Till its 5th year Eureka! already provided impetus to many budding entrepreneurs
who showed great business potential and made them available with services like
Free Incubation, Free Quality testing, Free Web services, Free Chartered
accountant, Free Legal consultancy etc.
Teams got a chance for Free Incubation for one year at IIC-SIDBI at IIT Kanpur
and the golden opportunity to go on to participate in the finals of StartUp@Asia
Business Plan Competition for the winners, its first ever tie-up with international
competition and the chance to pitch in front of VCs and corporate all over the
globe

Eureka !2004
Within a few years the competition reached its heights.It needed something that
could give a platform to the participants a chance to discuss and learn from the
leading industry experts from their fields. Keeping in mind this spirit nationwide
mentoring programme started with Mentors Meet in 2004 for first time in India, an
interactive session wherein the participants would be provided insights into various
aspects of framing a saleable Business Plan from Venture Capitalist and experts
from other fields.

Eureka! 2006
It was the time Eureka now started gaining name all over the world. It received
enteries from all across India as well as teams from countries like U.S started
showing enthusiasm in terms of the Competition they faced here. This was
reflected in the invitations which Eureka!06 winners received to prestigious
competitions such as that of Singapore's "Global Entropolis".

Eureka! 2007
This was a year of unique achievement for Eureka! as the winner Gama
Entertainment Systems while giving its final presentation in front of the
judges received on the spot funding for $1.25million from one of the judges
Mr
Vishal
Gondal
,founder
of
Indiagames.com.
( http://www.gamaentertainment.com)
Besides Eureka! sponsored by Intel UC Berkley wala bata do

Eureka! 2009
The 2009 competition was an ultimate success with more than 1850 entries. It was
the Team Oorja from IIT Kharagpur the winner of Eureka!2009 that planned to
manufacture the indigenous Lithium-ion batteries based on an entirely novel
cathode synthesis technique and aimed to strike a chord among the common mass
with its low cost and high efficiency, without being an environmental hazard.
Second price was won by Team Unicom which formed breakthrough product
called WIBANDTM, world's only single chip tuneable frequency power amplifier
module for cell-phones which aimed to revolutionize the $1.5Bn Power Amplifier
Module (PAM) market.

Eureka! 2010
The Competition received more than 2000 enteries for the first time and was
crowned as Asias Largest Business Plan Competition by Thomson Reuters,
worlds Largest news agency, besides distributing prizes worth $50,000 and a
chance to pitch infront of Mumbai Angels and Indian Angel Network.
A team- from Cornell University,U.S ( No Paper Forms ) won the first prize
which developed an advanced user-driven admission automation engine to help
educators receive admission applications online as opposed to conventional paper
forms reducing the wastage of paper.
https://www.nopaperforms.com/

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