The morning of 2nd February felt bright and right because of the lively, jovial milieu of the conference hall at IMI Delhi, where the Delhi leg of Khoj 2017 was to be held. Bright, young and adept minds with hopes and colossal ambitions along with insatiate veterans who hoped to sate their hunger for innovation filled the room with the right kind of positive aura. Khoj 2017 Delhi had indeed brought the finest minds of the city under one roof.
The event began with the opening remark by Mr. Anup Mehta, COO which was followed by Director & Mr.Shashank Randev, Director,(Z Nation Lab) where they addressed the attendees and gave a small brief about the objectives that an ambitious venture like Khoj wishes to achieve. Later on, our Key Note Speaker, Mr.Alok Agrawal – Founding Partner, Growth Labs, came and spoke about the Global startup scenario.
This was followed by a Fire sight chat with Silicon Valley veterans which was a Live QnA session where the audience was given the opportunity of interacting with the panel if there was any concept which they found abstruse. The entire session was filled with impeccable questions and equally impressive reverts to our well-esteemed panel.
In the course of the event, Startup pitches were up next.
With more than 100 entries received the most competent were chosen to have their ideas pitched in front of the panel. Entrepreneurs presented their ideas in front of a jury which consisted of Mr.Piyush Arora – Brand Capital, Mr.Aayush Jain – Unicorn India Ventures, Mr.Piyush Chawla – GrowX Ventures, Mr. Girish Shivani-Yournest, Dr.Shikha Suman – MediMojo, Mr.Deepak Goel – Karmacircles, Serial Entrepreneur, Mr.Shivam Ahuja – Delhi Startups, Ms.Divya Jasmera – Delhi Startups in a room that was filled with 45+ investors. A plethora of new ideas was discussed and every entrepreneur presented themselves in the most zealous manner possible. These budding entrepreneurs soared high beyond the myriad of mediocre startups and wowed the jury.
Khoj, as the word suggests is a search for entrepreneurs, for ideas and most importantly for innovation. Khoj is a venture of Z Nation Lab curated in order to nurture and support worthy ideas in order to infuse innovation into SME’s MSME & Corporates in India. Innovation is at the core of Khoj, where the idea is to bring together the entire ecosystem to collaborate, network and to find the right connects. It is a competition where entrepreneurs pitch their ideas and present themselves in front of a jury of investors and entrepreneurs alike. The one, most deserving startup will be called to Mumbai for the finals where they stand a chance to obtain funding, tech validations, scaling up opportunities and Z Nation Lab partnership programs as well.
We conceptualized Khoj with an aim to revolutionizing the startup ecosystem especially in tier-II cities in India and I am so overwhelmed with the feedback we received so far not only from the startups but also from all our university partners and mentors. We have conducted KHOJ initiative across multiple cities in India and have to date accelerated and funded about 12 startup Entrepreneurs in the last one year.
Flicksys were announced as the winner of Khoj 2017 Delhi thus ending the magnanimous event. The event would not have been possible without our partners at Your Story, IMI, Delhi Angels, Lead Angels, Headstart, cute office, The Hacker Street, Startup Selfie, DS, Stun Startup Tunnel, Sigmaworks, and Suburb.
If you are looking at partnering or sponsoring our next khoj event. Write to me at neha@znationlab.com.
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