Al Gore Sustainable Technology Venture Competition™, IIT Madras, Chennai, September 30 - October 3, 2010.

Al Gore Sustainable Technology Venture Competition™ 2010, IIT Madras, Chennai, September 30 – October 3, 2010.

Aug 4th, 2010 | By GAURAV SIKARWAR | Category: Business, Contests

EVENT TYPE: Business Plan Contest

Important Dates:

Plans Being Accepted: June 30 – August 10, 2010

Deadline for Electronic Submission of Plans: August 10, 2010

Declaration of Finalists: August 18, 2010

Mentoring Period: August 24 – September 24, 2010

Intensive Mentoring at IIT Madras: September 30 – October 1, 2010

Live Presentations to the IIT Madras Judges’ Panel: October 2, 2010

Awards Ceremony at IIT Madras: October 3, 2010

The Al Gore Sustainable Technology Venture Competition™

About The Al Gore Sustainable Technology Venture Competition™ 2010

The Al Gore Sustainable Technology Venture Competition™ Asia’s first and most prestigious sustainable/clean technology business plan competition, founded in 2007, is the brainchild of Oopali Operajita, CEO, Cicero, A Trans National Advisory, a Senior Political and International Affairs Adviser to several of India’s prominent political leaders and a former Distinguished Faculty Fellow at Carnegie Mellon University, USA. Operajita was appointed at Carnegie Mellon by its legendary founder-president, President Richard Cyert, and she firmly established India and India studies there, as far back as 1989, bringing India’s ambassadors and leaders to visit campus for the first time. Operajita thought up an exclusive All India Sustainable Technology Venture Competition in honour of Vice President and Nobel laureate Al Gore. She named it for Al Gore, with encouragement from some of Al Gore’s colleagues from his White House days, and launched the First Al Gore Sustainable Technology Venture Competition in November 2007. Finalists were invited to make live presentations before an eminent judging panel on February 11-12, 2008, in New Delhi. The impetus and motivating force lay in Operajita’s wish to galvanize an entire generation of India’s formidable engineering, science, technology and management students — widely acknowledged as some of the brightest in the world — from its leading institutions, such as its legendary Indian Institutes of Technology (IITs), National Institutes of Technology (NITs) and Indian Institutes of Management (IIMs), as she says, “into thinking sustainability, and incorporating it into their mindsets, and coming up with sustainable technology solutions, for the future of the imperilled planet.” Further, she states, “Indians are known as some of the world’s greatest innovators and entrepreneurs, and I wanted to tap into this incredibly rich resource pool with one stroke.”

ASSOCHAM, The Associated Chambers of Commerce and Industry of India, India’s apex industry and commerce body, is the official industry partner of The Al Gore Sustainable Technology Venture Competition™. Under the trail blazing leadership of its current president, leading industrialist Mr. Sajjan Jindal, Vice Chairman and Managing Director of JSW Steel Limited, India, ASSOCHAM has emerged as a prominent industry leader worldwide both in the fight against global warming and in enhancing India’s energy security. Mr. Jindal was a generous sponsor of activities during Vice President Gore’s visit to India in March, 2008, and supports the India arm of Gore’s Climate Project. The next competition was held at the legendary Indian Institute of Technology, IIT Kharagpur, India. and Mercedes-Benz India is the official sponsor of the competition.

IIT Madras is to be the Education Partner of Asia’s first and most prestigious sustainable/cleantech venture competition in 2010. The competition is now in its third year, and comes on the heels of the phenomenal success of the second official Al Gore Sustainable Technology Venture Competition™ at IIT Kharagpur, November 6-7, 2009.