Indian Institute of Technology (IIT) – Bombay has announced the fifth edition of the National Entrepreneurship Challenge (NEC) to promote entrepreneurship amidst all the campuses in India. The 2017 edition will be launched on August 31 when the first set of assignments will be rolled-out.

Coming up with an innovative idea is not a rocket science. Keeping this in mind, National Entrepreneurship Challenge was initiated 5 years back as first-of-its-kind pan-India competition undertaken by the Entrepreneurship Cell (E-Cell) of IIT-B to demystify the shroud of alienism that surrounds innovation.

Through NEC, the institution envisions to help establish E-Cells all across the nation which in turn will help develop the start-up ecosystem in country.

The annual challenge calls for participation from colleges for prizes worth Rs 6 lakh and mentorship from IIT-B. Each college has to first set up an E-Cell with at least 7 students to sustain the cell. The students are then assigned tasks to complete over a period of five months. Tasks include workshops and seminars to initiate dialogue about entrepreneurship among the student community.

The wait is over@ecell_iitb present National Entrepreneurship Challenge
Register at https://t.co/Zobc4uZ9zO #BringGloryToYourCollege #NEC pic.twitter.com/QNOHFFZzLh

— E-Cell, IIT Bombay (@ecell_iitb) August 20, 2017

Since 2013, the E-Cell of IIT-B has helped develop student-run entrepreneurship-cells in 160 colleges across 80 cities in the country and distributed Rs 2 million. The spread took place post a foreign universities survey to get a better idea of the entrepreneurship-support trends outside India. It gave a clear indication to go beyond the boundaries of IIT-B and set-up similar E-Cells.

The E-Cell of IIT Bombay focuses on developing entrepreneurial spirit of students for an instrumental development of the nation.