RISE Brings The Second Edition Of Its Hackathon; Runway Get Set Hack

The ed-tech industry is growing tremendously through the new in-demand courses and the customizations provided by the platforms, one such ed-tech platform RISE has seen spectacular sequential growth in its services and has organised its second hackathon based on Entrepreneurship. Indeed, for many students, this has come out as an opportunity to upskill their innovative ideas and promote a new-age startup culture. 

RISE appears as a medium to create such hackathons and is aiming to create further opportunities for students to turn their ideas into reality. Many industries have now demanded having their employees to not just theoretical expertise but practical understanding as well. To seek sustainable ways in the industry, certain hackathons should be required for easy access to knowledge.

Previously, RISE had created a GET SET HACK for Cybersecurity which was possibly the biggest virtual cybersecurity hackathon in India witnessing participation from more than twenty-two thousand participants.Gaurv Bhatia, CEO of RISE, opens up on their journey to the second success of a hackathon in a year. Their collaboration with Viral Fission and with other universities as well.

1. Please tell us about the ideation of the RUNWAY GET SET HACK by RISE. Is this the first entrepreneurship hackathon that you organized, can we expect more such hackathons in the future?
Post the successful facilitation of India’s biggest hackathon in Cybersecurity known as GET SET HACK by RISE with more than 22K participants, the second version called RUNWAY GET SET HACK by RISE is the Entrepreneurship Edition. The entrepreneurship edit was designed to provide a platform to bring forth business ideas and help students with a solid foundation of business networking among leading entrepreneurs in India to showcase their scalable startup ideas. 

The jury included well-known names like ex-MD and Global Head of Investment Product Management for Citibank, Malay Ghatak, Gunika Grover from India Accelerator, Kapel Malhotra, angel investor in multiple startups and partner at CBIE Ventures, Puneet Talwar, partner at CBIE ventures, Prashant Iyer, Asst Director, Startup Accelerator MIT WPU, CEO & Co-founder of Blowhorn, Mithun Srivatsa, and Innovations Head at Viral Fission, Umang Gandhi.

The awardees were provided with ample opportunities to present ideas via video submissions & pitch decks. With the added aim of promoting a new age startup culture, we at RISE are committed to transform students by providing ample opportunities that challenge them to thrive ahead with innovative ideas and skills to expand their horizons beyond theoretical knowledge.

We will be conducting more such hackathons in the future where students will get opportunities to build their ideas into businesses. Hackathons like Runway by RISE or our previous Cybersecurity hackathon, GetSetHack by RISE help us to reach out to more students and encourage them to test their skills and knowledge & to create awareness about our programs.

For entrepreneurship we wanted to give real hands-on experience to the learners instead of theory for which we got on board India Accelerator & Draper University. We are looking at doing more such hackathons in the future & broadening the reach and awareness around newer career opportunities & options for the youth. 

2. RISE has partnered with various prominent industry players to facilitate this entrepreneurship Hackathon. Who are these partners, what has been their role and how did these collaborations pan out?
This is our second collaboration with Viral Fission, the first one being for the Cybersecurity Hackaton, Get Set Hack by RISE. It was a natural synergy to work with them for the entrepreneurship hackathon. 

We partnered with Maharashtra State Innovation Society and Andhra Pradesh State Council of Higher Education as our state partners, CBIE Ventures as our capital partners, Draper University as our academic partners and India Accelerator as the Knowledge partner. Additionally, MIT Innovation Hub, Symbiosis Center for Media & Communication, IIIT Pune, Mithibai College, Mumbai and TiE, Mumbai were our outreach partners. All these organizations are working in the space of the startup ecosystem with a focus of developing and encouraging students to take up entrepreneurship. 

In addition ,  it has been a natural synergy with all our partners due to our common interests in developing the spirit of entrepreneurship among youth . 

3. Please give a detailed brief on the Top winners. What were the factors determined to consider them for the winning position?
The first Prize was bagged by Circle, which is a financial wellness application for low income white & grey collar employees in India. First runner up is SwiftRide, a Ride (Car & Bike) pooling platform (mobile app) for student communities. 

This app matches student ride-givers and ride-takers on the same route. Second runner-up is Teamup, a cloud-based platform that enables industries and university students to collaborate on solving real-world cases to bridge the gap in theoretical education and practical learning. These three teams not only won the fully paid trip to the Silicon Valley but also won cash prizes ranging from Rs 1.75L to INR 25000 in addition to receiving letters of engagement from CBIE Ventures for further funding & mentoring. 

The most important thing that made these three winners stand out from the rest was the fact that they were extremely well researched, well planned and thought out startups solving real world challenges in their approaches. They had diverse teams with varied expertise which helped them in getting better perspectives and outcomes.

3.2
The main parameters used are
1) How innovative is the idea?
2) How is it solving a real-world problem?
3) How scalable is the idea? 

We educated the participants with a fully paid 2 week course, The Fundamentals of entrepreneurship conducted by Draper University, which helped them to fine tune their pitches and business plans. This also enabled them to present their ideas to the jury on the finale. 

4. Please give us a basic timeline of the activities undertaken under the RUNWAY GET SET HACK by RISE banner? What all was incorporated in the curriculum for the hackathon and what are the benefits to these winners and the participants in regards with their learning and the prize pool? Please tell us in detail.
The participants started out by registering their teams and filling out a detailed questionnaire post which the initial shortlisting was done. The shortlisted 100 teams then underwent a two week fully paid training on the Fundamentals of Entrepreneurship, conducted by Draper University. In this virtual course, they learned to fine tune their pitches and eventually use the learnings to create their submission pitch deck, which was the penultimate round of submission. 

The decks were evaluated by the jury based on various parameters like clarity of business idea, team credentials, what problems it's solving etc. The top 10 were then invited to Pune for the final pitch round where they showcased their ideas live to the jury. 

The top 3 winners were awarded a fully paid trip to Silicon Valley with a scholarship to the renowned Hero Training Program, by Draper University. The entire visit and stay including the course, visa, travel, accommodation is being taken care of by RISE. The top 10 also received Letter of Intent from our investment partner, CBIE Ventures.   

5. Please tell our audience about the response/participation witnessed for the hackathon? 
In Runway by RISE, we have had phenomenal reach with more than 4500 students participating across 1600+ unique colleges from all over India resulting in around 2000 teams participating.

The students (participants) were very excited by the opportunity to learn from some of the best minds in the entrepreneurship ecosystem.

6. How is RISE promoting entrepreneurship and inculcating the essence of entrepreneurship in its students? What other initiatives are expected in the coming times to promote entrepreneurship?
Equipping the generation to be ready for the changing industry landscape and to promote innovativeness and entrepreneurial ecosystem among the student and across the Globe is a need of the hour and can only be done by creating awareness about entrepreneurship and providing more such opportunities to the upcoming generation and by providing access to high quality, industry oriented certification programs. 

We are working towards launching our own Entrepreneurship program which will help the student community to get hands-on experience and mentoring from some of the best minds in the space.