Bangalore, Aug 24, 2010: In a relatively short time, Biotechnology Entrepreneurs Students Programme, BEST has been recognized as the truly pan India initiative of the Department of Biotechnology (DBT) for entrepreneurship. The objective of BEST is to locate bright scholars pursuing master’s and doctoral studies in Life science courses across Indian Universities and equip them with the skill and knowledge that is required to set up business enterprises so that they would consider entrepreneurship as a career choice and not limit their scope to mere employment. Establishment of such business enterprises has the potential of employment generation in the country resulting in exponential growth of the biotech Industry.

Conceptualized and instituted by the DBT in 2008, BEST is an innovative scheme that allows student teams to showcase scientific ideas in life sciences that has merits of commercialization and scaling up.
BEST 2009, managed and conducted by Association for biotechnology Led enterprises, ABLE, was a resounding success. Consequently, the DBT, mandated ABLE to conduct BEST for the next three years. ABLE conducts the programme in close partnership with the DBT, Industry and the Academia.

This year again, online submission of concept notes saw exceedingly good response from 188 teams from institutions all across the country. Two rounds of screening resulted in short listing of 20 teams (eighty participants) that attended a four day residential entrepreneurship workshop from the 29th July to the 1st of August at the Royal Orchid Resort, Bangalore.

The workshop was mentored by Mr. Stephen Sammut, Senior fellow, Wharton, US and Prof. Venkat Chandroo of ISB, Hyderabad. As many as 24 speakers and panelists contributed their time and effort in imparting training the participants in elements of entrepreneurship that would help them make a business plan and pitch before a jury panel.

A unique feature of the workshop was the participation of two of the winning teams of BEST2009 that had gone on to register companies to come and share with the audience their real and relevant experiences in their entrepreneurial journey.

Finally, the workshop culminated in an eminent jury panel chaired by Dr Natesh, senior Advisor DBT, and co-chaired by Dr.Vijay Chandru, President, ABLE, picking up six winning teams out of the 20.

The Department of Biotechnology (DBT) awards three prizes of Rs 5 lakh, Rs 3 Lakh, and Rs 2 Lakh for the first, second and the third top teams of BEST competitions every year. This year, looking at the quality and standard of the competition, and to encourage and motivate budding entrepreneurs across India, in addition to the usual three prizes from DBT, ABLE decided to award an additional set of three prizes, of Rs 5 Lakh, Rs 3 lakhs and Rs 2 lakh for three more teams. Hence this year there are two sets of prizes, namely two first prizes of Rs 5 Lakh each, two second prizes of Rs 3 Lakh each, and two third prizes of Rs 2 Lakh each.

The Prizes will be disbursed at ABLE’s flagship event, BIOINVEST on 26th Nov 2010, at Mumbai.