tie canaan entrepreneurship challenge - the winners are druvaa, equitas & iken

The results of the TiE Canaan Entrepreneurship Challenge 2008 are out and the top awards have gone to Druvaa, Equitas & iKen (there is no specific gradation in the prizes). The finals for the business plan competition were held today at New Delhi and the awards were announced at an entrepreneurship / startup gathering in the evening. Congrats to the winners. Iken has also been awarded the Microsoft award and a direct entry into the Microsoft Startup Accelerator Program. Quick note about the three winners : - Druvaa is a 10 member startup based out of Pune and is in the data protection and backup storage space. - iKen Solutions is a software company specializing in intelligent business systems backed by hybrid AI (Artificial Intelligence) techniques. It is an IIT Bombay research spin-off. - Equitas is a Chennai based microfinance orgainisation for extending micro credit to people who are otherwise unable to access finance from the mainstream banking channels. The jury for the competition comprised well know entrepreneurs & startup mentors - Raman Roy of Quattro, Pramod Bhasin of Genpact, Saurabh Srivastava of TiE, Mahesh Murthy of Pinstrorm/Seedfund, Sanjeev Bikhchandani of Naukri.com & Alok Mittal of Canaan Partners. The award ceremony was preceeded by an open house discussion on entrepreneurship challenges in India. This was led by Shireen Bhan, CNBC India’s leading business news reporter.