Hyderabad Student Startup team ‘FindR’ ends runners up at Seattle TYE Global Finals

KV Lakshmana

Consulting Editor / [email protected]

The Indus Entrepreneurs (TiE) Hyderabad Team ‘FindR’ stood out as Runner Up at the TiE Young Entrepreneurs Global 2020, the virtual grand finale conducted by TIE Seattle held on Sunday. The team won prize money of $1500 and, more important, generated investors interests.

 In this 11th anniversary edition of the TYE Global jointly organized by TiE Seattle & TiE Global, 32 teams representing TiE chapters from around the world participated virtually on July 17 and 18. These teams were previously the chapter winners and then mentored to participate in the Global Competition for a cash award of $10000 shared by top 3 teams.

After a qualifier round on 17th July, 8 teams were selected for the finals held on 18th. Teams get 10 minutes to pitch to an eminent Jury panel connected via a video conference. At the Global Final Competition, students compete in teams, create business plans and present their solutions virtually to a panel of judges. TYE 2020 also had a “Maker’s Faire”, “Elevator Pitch”, “Business Model”, Execution”, “Customer Validation” and “Team Work “competition.

Team FindR representing TiE Hyderabad chapter was declared the Winners of the Regional Business Plan Competition held in Jan 2020 for their innovative idea FindR, A LinkedIn-like solution for blue collar jobs including the provision of maids, cleaners, drivers for customers.

The 5 student member team FindR represented by N Hasvanth Reddy from Delhi Public School, G Srilasya from FIITJEE, Samhitha T from The Future Kid’s School, Ishan Amit and Mihir Boppana from Oakridge International School after being declared Global Runners Up now expressed their joy stating ““We dedicated our victory to the TIE Mentors, Parents and TiE Hyderabad team.

It was their relentless guidance, and support even during the lockdown time due to the COVID pandemic that led to our triumph. We are eager to further shape this business idea and start our venture. This team was guided throughout the program by advisors Swastik Bihani of Paypal and Murali Bukkapatnam of The Skilling Company.”

“Congratulating the winning team Sridhar Pinnapureddy, CMD of CtrlS and President – TiE Hyderabad said “These are benchmarking global scale startup stories from Hyderabad. We are committed to nurturing, shaping, and hand-holding startups like FindR, to grow their idea, giving them much needed guidance and mentoring to compete at a global stage.

TiE Hyderabad has a fantastic team of mentors who dedicate their time and effort to grow and strengthen the startup ecosystem. We are proud of these young talented entrepreneurs.

This is a complete team effort put forward by the TYE Program Co-chairs and Board Members Venkatesh Narasimhan, Senior Director Silicon Labs and Viiveck Verma Founder of Upsurge Global, who helped them to grow their idea, giving them thorough guidance and mentoring the students over the last few months to compete at a global stage, he added.

Hosted by TiE Seattle Virtually, TYE student participants were inspired by the keynote address by Mr. Vivek Yeshwant Ranadivé, Chairman of Sacramento Kings, NBA Team and Founder of TIBCO Software a multi-billion-dollar computing major from Silicon Valley.

iDentistry, An AI based image recognition app to self-diagnose dental flaws team from TiE Dallas is the second runner up. BWI (Boxed Water Initiative), A company that provides eco-friendly boxed water as a promotional product from TiE Atlanta Chapter grabbed the first prize at TYE Globals 2020.

TYE (TiE Young entrepreneurs) is a TiE Global initiative dedicated to chapters integrating classroom sessions, mentoring and business plan competition aimed at High School students (grades 9-12 or equivalent college students are allowed). TYE is designed to teach high school students’ entrepreneurship and leadership skills.

The TYE program is designed for a 16-week period, which includes classroom instruction, design thinking workshops, mentoring support for business plan development, and culminates with business plan competition.

At the core, TYE is developed to encourage the Entrepreneurial Mind-set from an early age and provide insight into Entrepreneurship and instill confidence to lead in a global environment.