What: Imagine getting a shot to pitch your idea to a guy who will give you USD 200,000 to make it a reality. Better still, imagine doing this when you're still in college.

Conquest 2009, BITS Pilani's International Business Plan Competition, currently in its sixth edition aims to become the largest student run business plan competition in India and is now accepting entries for its screening stage. It is organised by the Center for Entrepreneurial Leadership (CEL) at BITS.

Contestants can be students pursuing undergraduate or graduate studies in any recognised University from across the world or interested individuals from the corporate sector.

The winners this year receive the following benefits

• A berth as a semi-finalist in Wharton's Business Plan Contest. This is being done in collaboration with the Wharton Entrepreneurial Programme.
• A pitch to Kris Nair's Opdrage Venture for funding upto USD 200,000, one of the top VC firms for seed-funding in India.
• Direct entry into the Intel-Department of Science & Technology(Government of India) competition
• Incubation from some of the top names in the corporate and academic sector such as nLeague, BITS Pilani, Intel etc
• Prize money in total exceeding INR 8 Lacs, which is amongst the highest for any Business Plan competition in India.
• Apart from all these tangible benefits there is access to resources of our knowledge partners and investors from top corporations. All finalists receive extensive mentorship from top executives. 

CEL is also proud to announce that this year they have launched their online platform for Conquest, which has great features for building a business plan and will make evaluation a much simpler process. This is being done in collaboration with the India Development Gateway.

The platform can be accessed here: http://conquest.cel-bits.org/

The Business Plans can be based on any sector and past winners have presented their plans relating to the health, leisure, manufacturing and even neuroscience sectors.

Judges include the creme de la creme from the corporate as well as academic sectors. This also includes venture capitalists and investors from firms such as Draper Fisher Jurvetson, Siemens Venture Capital amongst others. For the ever expanding full list of judges visit here http://conquest.cel-bits.org/judges.html

To submit your entries before November 22, 2008 visit: http://conquest.cel-bits.org/

For Rules of the Business Plan Competition visit: http://conquest.cel-bits.org/rules.html

For more resources for Business Plan competition visit: http://conquest.cel-bits.org/resources.html

The deadline for sending the entries is November 22, 2008.

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