Global Newsletter April 2018

Celebrating Women & Youth in Entrepreneurship

April 2018 Newsletter

Dear TiE Members:

TiE Global conducts the TiE University Challenge for providing promising startup grad teams from Asia and Europe, a chance to pitch at Rice University’s business plan competition – the world’s largest and richest student business plan competition.. TiE Chapters identify promising startups at respected universities with disruptive and scalable ideas. After a screening process, two TiE Challenge Winners are selected!

This year, one of the winners was WCB Robotics, which developed a robot to clean glass windows of high-rise skyscrapers. The 22-year CEO – Ujjawal Aggarwal was flown to Houston, Texas, with his teammate, to participate at Rice University Business Plan Competition. TiE mentors coached them for their big presentation to investors and judges at #RBPC2018. On April 7th, 2018, their startup dreams come true, as they won prize money totaling $450,000!

Meanwhile in India, workshops were organized specifically for Women entrepreneurs via the TiE Women’s Project AIRSWEEE 2.0 Mentors from US and India provided valuable and real-life insights to women founders on scaling their company.

TiE Global is achieving the mission of supporting entrepreneurship via these significant Women and Youth initiatives.

TIE YOUTH PROGRAM

TIE UNIVERSITY CHALLENGE
Helping dynamic Startup founders raise capital

TiE team from BITS Pilani, Hyderabad won more than $450,000 in prizes at the Rice University Business Plan Competition, earlier this month.

Rice University Business Plan Competition (RBPC) awarded more than $2 million to various university startup teams, earlier this month. Since 2012, RBPC has partnered with TIE Global for selecting 2 high-quality International university startup teams, that get fast-track entry to the top 42 Finalists at RBPC. This year, 2 Winning TiE teams selected were both from Asia : Team Sightecho with Davon Hui & Sauce Wan (Hong Kong University of Science and Technology), and WCB Robotics with Gokul Anandan & Ujjawal Aggarwal (Birla Institute of Technology and Science, Pilani – Hyderabad).

These teams were selected for their innovative technologies and flown to Houston to participate at RBPC. The teams was coached by TiE mentors – Ashok Rao, Christian Tidona, Juan Felipe Arjona, Vikas Shah, PK Agarwal, Praveen Tailam among others.

WCB Robotics won $150,000 TiE Houston Angel Group Investment Prize, $5000 for the People’s Choice Award, and one more round of investment by the Goose Society of Texas for $300,000. That’s a total of over $450 grand! Here’s the Press Release on the RBPC 2018 Award Winners.

Winning Pitch by WCB Robotics at RBPC

“
When we first arrived at the TIE bootcamp at Houston, we felt like the Competition was out of our league. Our pitch deck was left wanting.. and our competitors were kids from the best universities around the world with suave pitches.

But there was one piece of unfair advantage that we had that made all the difference towards us winning a prize. We had the undying support of a suite of mentors from TIE who were all successful entrepreneurs with experience far exceeding all our competitors put together. I learnt that in life, having the right people backing you can make all the difference!

“
– Ujjawal Aggarwal, Winner of TiE University Challenge & Rice Business Plan Competition

TIE WOMENS PROGRAM

AIRSWEEE 2.0
All-India Road Show on Women’s Economic Empowerment through Entrepreneurship

Prafulla Samal (Odisha State Minister), Jayashree Mohanty (TiE Women Mentor from Bhubaneswar), Debashish Patnaik (TiE Bhubaneshwar President), Katherine Hadda (US Consul General in Hyderabad), Seema Chaturvedi (Chairperson, AIRSWEEE), Caroline Palmer (Mentor from TiE Oregon)

TiE successfully launched the second year of Project All India Road Show for Women’s Economic Empowerment through Entrepreneurship (AIRSWEEE) on March 14, 2018. Leveraging its global network, TiE conducted in-person, 4-day workshops in five cities in India, including Bhubaneshwar, Patna, Lucknow, Hubli and Baroda to mentor 150 women entrepreneurs. These mentees came from over 30 Tier 2, 3 cities and 15 states in India and were mentored by 7 Charter Members from US and 5 Charter Members from India. 25 mentees have been selected to receive an additional 6 months remote mentoring in Phase 2 which will commence on May 1, 2018. Project AIRSWEEE 2.0 has been funded by a grant from the US State Department.

“
AIRSWEEE 2.0 has opened up opportunities for lady entrepreneurs to think bigger than their present operations. It has boosted confidence of all participants; and now they think they are not alone. Support of close mentors will take them to higher success.

“
– Jayashree Mohanty, TiE Women Mentor

FLAGSHIP EVENT

TIE INFLECT 2018
Imagination AI

TiE Inflect is on May 4-5, 2018

TiE Silicon Valley invites you to TiE Inflect 2018 to join the excitement on May 4-5, 2018, at the Santa Clara Convention Center, attracting 5000+ attendees from 20+ countries.This one-of-a-kind event brings together startups, thought leaders, domain experts, enterprise executives, venture capitalists, angel investors, government agencies, and service firms that thrive and support a broad, global entrepreneurial ecosystem.

TiE Inflect 2018 will focus on the business and human impact of AI, and how AI combines with disruptive technologies like Blockchain and IOT, which are radically transforming every industry including FinTech, MarTech, HealthTech and more.

IN THE NEWS

Media coverage of #TiECon Nagpur in the Hitavada. Mahavir Sharma (TiE Global Trustee & past President, TiE Rajasthan), Shashikant Chaudhary (TiE Nagpur past President), Vishwas Mahajan (ex-TiE Global Trustee & TiE Pune past President), & Amitabh Shrivastava (IANS) provided information of how funding is getting easier for innovative startups in India. View news online

NEW LEADERSHIP

Say Hello to new TiE Chapter Leaders

New Presidents

TiE Kerala: MSA Kumar
TiE Ahmedabad: Prashant Halari
TiE Bhubaneshwar: Debasish Patnaik

New Executive Directors

TiE Islamabad: Zeeshan Shahid
TiE SouthCoast : Jessica Lanza
TiE Carolinas : Milan Patel

View all TiE Chapter Leaders

ANNUAL EVENTS

TiEcon Dubai
Hosted by TiE Dubai
UAE / April 18

TiEQuest 2018
Hosted by TiE Toronto
Toronto / April 18

TiEcon Pune
Hosted by TiE Pune
Pune/ April 20-21

India Internet Day
Hosted by TiE Delhi
Gurugram / April 26

TiE CM Retreat
Hosted by TiE Global
Prague, Czech Republic / June 29 – July 2

TiE Inflect
Hosted by TiE SV (formerly TiEcon)
Santa Clara / May 4-5

TYE Global Finals
Hosted by TiE DC & TiE Global
Washington DC / June 22-23

View all upcoming TiE Events

For feedback and updates for the TiE Global Newsletter, please write to [email protected]. You can visit us at TiE Global on Twitter, Facebook and Linked-in.

Global Newsletter April 2018