To promote the culture of entrepreneurship among students, PayPal has opened the doors of its Start Tank incubator to youngsters aspiring to start their own businesses. The incubation center in Chennai, which hosts and grooms tech startup companies, now encourages student entrepreneurs from across top universities to pitch their tech ideas and turn them into reality.
For the first time since its inception in 2013, PayPal's Start Tank rolled out its Incubation Challenge at the recently-held Entrepreneurship Conclave and Startup Hive at IIT-Madras and selected two teams from the competition. They will now have a direct entry into the finals of the Incubation Challenge that will be conducted later this year, and upon selection, they will get incubated at Start Tank.
The winning idea of "delivering logistics via drones" was pitched by a team of MTech students from IIT-M and the runner-up idea, "pushing dynamic ads into mobile games in place of the obtrusive banner ads" came from a team of dual degree students, also from IIT-M. Several promising concepts, such as crowdfunding to support the underprivileged, 3D printing & distribution and "green garbage" waste management, were also presented by students from several leading universities in the country.
Anupam Pahuja - General Manager, Technology (Asia-Pacific), PayPal - said, "Extending the Start Tank Incubation Challenge to student entrepreneurs comes with the commitment of supporting their innovative startup ideas and tech concepts. It is encouraging to see many students in India daring to dream to give wings to their ideas and set up business ventures. Through Start Tank, we aim to help them with the right kind of mentorship and guidance to enter the market right after graduation."
PayPal launched "Start Tank Incubation Challenge" last year, to identify and incubate the country's next generation tech-centric startups. After IIT-Madras, PayPal has now partnered with SASTRA University to organize the Incubation Challenge as part of their techno-management fest to be held in Thanjavur, in February 2015. Interested applicants, student/non-student entrepreneurs, can register for "Start Tank Incubation Challenge" with their tech-centric ideas here.
PayPal's Start Tank provides an obligation-free environment for select startups to evolve. The exclusive facility in PayPal's Chennai development center has an office area of more than 11,000 square feet with a world-class incubation space, state-of-the-art conference rooms and other amenities.
Start Tank runs globally across PayPal offices in Boston, London and Chennai, and provides access to global mentors, angel investors and venture capitalists. PayPal formally launched its Chennai startup incubator in association with TiE Chennai in November 2013, and currently hosts six startups: DoPartTime, Fantain, Hey Feedback, Kobster.com, Konotor, and PiQube.
