IIT Delhi has won the social entrepreneurship competition - Enactus India National Championship beating 57 teams from over 90 colleges. Delhi University's Ramjas College and Hansraj College were declared 1st and 2nd runner-ups respectively.
The winning team will present its project at the Enactus World Cup 2015 to be held at Johannesburg, South Africa between October 14 and 16. The IIT Delhi team led by Praneeth Buriyu has 47 participating members.
IIT Delhi’s winning project was Excelsior INDIA, under which the team proposed to collect waste papers from urban areas, recycle that and convert the waste paper into recycled paper notebooks of very fine quality.
They have also come up with a design for a bag-cum-desk, completely made out of cardboard which can serve both as a bag to carry one’s belongings and a desk to write upon.
The team plans to distribute the bags among children from underprivileged sections of society along with a complete package of stationery items. The stationary package would include the bag-cum-desk, recycled notebooks, four pencils and an eraser.
This package will be sold to the students at a very affordable rate of Rs. 30. The entire share of the profit will be given to entrepreneurs.
“If winning is about being the best, losing is about learning and paving your way to greater success. I also congratulate the winning and participating teams for putting forth their best efforts," said Richard Rekhy, CEO of KPMG in India, and Chairman of Enactus India National Advisory Board. "Their creativity has won us over and I hope that this experience will help them in their future endeavours,” .
Enactus India is a subsidiary of Enactus Worldwide, an international non-profit organisation of students with a focus on community empowerment and entrepreneurship action.