The discord between ideas and realisation is very real which makes experience a coveted chance among students. Facilitating this want and helping young people offer ground breaking innovative and entrepreneurial solutions, with a focus on shaking up the often straightjacket like the environment of the financial sector, is the Yes Bank Transformation Series which recently concluded.
"Led by India's young leaders, a paradigm shift is being witnessed in our country. There is a spirit of metanoia. Today, India's youth is keen to build enterprises that would redefine the business ecosystem in India," said Rana Kapoor, Yes Bank's managing director and chief executive.
"Through the Transformation Series, we are trying to provide them a launch pad which places them in the shoes of entrepreneurs and business leaders and mentors them in their quest to become professional entrepreneurs," he continued, explaining the rationale behind the Transformation Series.
The series which was launched in 2010 offers students from all over the world the opportunity to gain invaluable real-time experience, working on industry challenges encountered by the financial sector and offer ingenious solutions to combat them.
This year, the theme was 'JargonStudents came from both India and abroad, from institutions like Yale, Asian Institute of Management, IIMs, ISB and XLRI.
This year, the series also included a novel concept- 'Innovation Lab', which allowed the participants interact with corporate India leaders, to help and guide them on their path of making innovation in the country a reality.
In a high paced and high adrenaline competition, teams competed across 12 campuses and were selected after a rigorous internal evaluation which was followed by three weeks of rigorous mentored brainstorming sessions from which the teams were filtered down to 30. Finally, this led to the grand finale in St. Regis Mumbai where the final 13 were chosen by a jury.
Finally, Team Rothschilds from ISB was declared the winner, while Team Case Stoppers from IIM, Trichy and the girl Team Mandevien Transformers from Management Development Institute (MDI), Gurgaon placed as the first and second runner-ups.
The winning team was given a cash prize of Rs. 1.5 lakh and the runner-ups received Rs. 1 lakh and Rs.50,000, respectively, along with the opportunity to see their ideas become a reality with Yes Bank's innovation team and the chance to sit for pre-placement opportunities with them.
The other finalists were:
1. Autobots, IIM Ahmedabad
2. T-Rex, IIM Calcutta
3. Technovators, IIM Bangalore
4. Invincibles, XLRI Mumbai
5. Swaggers, IIM Lucknow
6. YEScrows, IIM Indore
7. Marketeers, SCMHRD Pune
8. Krackjack, IIM Indore
9. 3 Wise Bankers, NMIMS Mumbai
10. Chanakya, ISB Hyderabad
BW Reporters
Simar Singh is one of the youngest members of the BW team. A fresh graduate from IIMC, she also holds a degree in political science from LSR. She enjoys covering power, startups, lifestyle and a little bit of tech.
