ACTION

PLAN
SOCIAL ENTREPRENEURSHIP
COMPETITION

COMPETITON SEPT 2019

MANUAL JAN 2020

A comprehensive guide to
participating in Abhyuday, IIT
Bombay's Flagship social
entrepreneurship competition:
Action Plan 2019-2020
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About Abhyuday
Abhyuday started 6 years back, with a group of socially inclined students who felt the
need for a body, which provides opportunities to the students of the institute who wish to
work for a better society. With a vision to channelize the youth towards India's social
challenges, Abhyuday has established itself as one of the country’s largest student-run
social bodies in the mere span of 6 years. Our flagship being Action Plan competition and
Career Counselling Campaign, we also conduct year-long events like volunteer weekends,
conferences, donation drives, exhibitions and provide social fellowship, internship
opportunities to the students of the institute.
  The ‘Social Fest’ usually held in January is a two-day extravaganza that celebrates the
spirit of social good.

About Action Plan

The notion of Human beings has always been to think and conform to a bigger goal in
their life. In the midst of that pursuit, they have intentionally or unintentionally raised
some social issues that in turn stand in their way to success. Nonetheless, we believe it is
high time now to bring our best, smart and innovative young minds of our country in front
of the world where they themselves try to solve numerous challenges that have plagued
our society for long. Unfortunately, most of the startups built around them fail because
they lack the required business plan. Here comes in Action Plan: the social
entrepreneurship competition of Abhyuday, IIT Bombay, where we help such startups
convert their idea into a scalable business model. Spread across 20+ states, 40+ cities
and 1500+ colleges, this nationwide competition takes the participating teams through
multiple stages, starting from identifying a specific problem through stakeholder
interaction, progressing to engage with stakeholders and organizations in developing a
solution, and validating those ideas in the society for further improvement.

In its last edition, 600+ teams registered for the competition out of which 90+ teams
received professional mentorship.

Action Plan - A Social Entrepreneurship Competition

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Why Action Plan?

Prizes worth over INR 1,00,000.
An opportunity to apply for financial grant program by Riidl. Also Winners of
the competition will get a batch of 30 students who will work with them to
accelerate their sales and earn during the course
Top 15 students teams will be directly shortlisted to the final round of iB Hubs’
Startup School’20 
Top 3 teams of Action Plan 2k19-20 will get an opportunity to be included in
Upaya’s Social Ventures’ accelerator Program
Top 3 teams will get a chance to avail for seed capital of Rs. 1 Lakh once they
are selected to incubate under SPTBI for 6 months
A chance to pitch your plan in front of more than 20 leading angel investors,
venture capitalists and industrialists from reputed firms like Lead Angels, Ah
ventures and JITO 
An opportunity to be mentored by successful seasoned entrepreneurs,
experienced industry professionals and faculty.
Networking opportunities with potential partners, investors and world class
entrepreneurs.Incubation opportunities for social ventures in various
Incubation centers like   CIIE-IIM Ahmedabad, 3i Zone, Upaya social ventures,
AIC-NMIMS and others.
Content rich feedback on the business model from world class entrepreneurs,
investors, and professional service providers on our Judging Panel.

Action Plan - A Social Entrepreneurship Competition

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Structure of Action Plan

Top 30 Teams
PHASE 1 PHASE 2 PHASE 3
20% Teams
Invited to
Selected
IIT Bombay

Registrations Mentor Allotment Workshops

Pan-India Workshops Webinars Mentor-Mentee Meetup
Playbook Submissions 'Problem-Solution-Fit' Final Pitching
Analysis

Timeline*
Action Plan Launch/ Registration Starts. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 29th Sept
Pan India Workshops . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 21st Sept - 29th Oct
Playbook Submission Deadline . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 31st Oct
First round results . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 5th Nov
Mentor Allocation . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 6th Nov
Webinars . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 25th Nov - 6th Dec
Solution Handbook submission. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 20th Dec
2nd Round Results . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 26th Dec
Final Action Plan Submission . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Jan, 2020
Mentor Mentee meetup . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Jan, 2020
Final pitching . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Jan, 2020

* Subjected to minor changes. Participants will be notified beforehand.

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Playbook
Playbook is to help the teams develop a deeper understanding of the opportunities they
are trying to explore. The playbook would help the teams lay out clear objectives for their
projects ideas, identify metrics for measurement, and provide a common framework &
approach for reaching a logical conclusion within the constraints of time, space &
resources.

Playbook Submission
In the problem statement submission round, participants are expected to
submit an overview of the exact problem that they seek to solve during the
Action Plan competition. This would include the inclusion of different
viewpoints, needs and perceptions, and narrowing them to a bunch of
measurable parameters
After registrations, the participating teams need to make field trips around
their respective areas to discover their problem statement for competition.
Field trips will carry weightage in final assessments.
After a detailed analysis of the problem statement including the measurement
of impact by choosing the standard metrics like disease ratio, accident ratio,
etc. to quantify the problem, participants are required to provide a detailed
analysis of their stakeholder identification through the framed questionnaire.
Also, participants must mention whether their solution is going to be a profit
type model or a non-profit type model.

Action Plan - A Social Entrepreneurship Competition

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Sectors

Action Plan aims to promote startups that hope to create a social impact in one of the
following sectors:

Education: “Education improves peoples’ productivity, creativity and also plays a crucial
role in securing social and economic progress.” Thus, startups aiming at improving the
quality of primary education, practical learning aspect of secondary education and
enhancing vocational education can register under this sector.

Women Empowerment:: “Women empowerment is accepting and allowing women who

are on the outside of the decision-making process into it.” This for startups providing
regional rights and facilities, security and protection, employment and employability to
women, you should register under this sector

Waste Management: “One of the surest signs that you are in a developing country is the
trash beneath your feet.” Hygiene and sanitation, innovative models to reuse waste,
technology to substitute manual scavenging are the topics to be focussed in this sector.

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Pollution: “India has 15 cities in the list of the world's 20 most polluted cities in the world.
Thus, it is really important for us”Introducing this sector to come up with technologies
that aid people in fighting pollution for the time needed to shift to clean energy fuels” and
to improve the existing condition.

Water Management: According to a recent report of NITI aayog, “21 of the major Indian
cities will run out of water by 2020. Thus, this sector will focus on ways to provide and
supply clean drinking water.”.

Financial inclusion: “It is making financial services available to each and everyone, via
digital payments, micro-lending, peer to peer lending, etc.” This will include startups
aiming at developing policies for financially weak people.

Employability: Most developing countries struggle with underemployment and

unemployment. With the second-largest population in the world, our country is also facing
similar problems. Hence, “this sector is for startups that can act as an employment
source in rural areas, or for less-educated people.”
Renewable sources of energy: “Economies across the world are on the verge of a
profound and urgently necessary transformation in the way they produce and use
energy.” Thus, in this sector, we are looking For startups that focus on maintaining, or
generating energy from cleaner fuels, improving the efficiency of existing solutions and
educating people on the same.
Renewable Resources of energy: “Economies across the world are on the verge of a
profound and urgently necessary transformation in the way they produce and use
energy.” Thus, in this sector, we are looking For startups that focus on maintaining, or
generating energy from cleaner fuels, improving the efficiency of existing solutions and
educating people on the same.
Health and Nutrition: This sector is for startups tackling malnutrition, providing financial
instruments for availing health services, accessibility to health services, and hygiene and
sanitation

The submission of the problem statement round would be in the format of a pre-decided
questionnaire which goes by the name Playbook. Once qualified for the action plan
submission stage (phase 2), each team will be provided with a mentor experienced in the
respective sectors.

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Mentorship Program & Guidelines

We have mentors who are successful and experienced people willing to share or impart
knowledge and wisdom to our participants. Mentors with a wide range of expertise and
experiences are chosen. They are categorized as:

1. Technical Mentors: Technical mentors are CEOs, consultants, partners,

prominent Social Activists or directors of successful companies or firms of
NGOs or Social Organizations. They will have deep knowledge in their social
sectors. Their experience will help mentees in understanding the problem
broadly.
2. Business Mentors:  Business mentors consultants, CEOs, CTOs, VPs, partners
or directors of successful companies. These experienced people will be
responsible in helping in at almost all activities of a startup, such as
formulating the business plan, product development, business development,
team-building, fund-raising, marketing, etc.

Every team will be provided with mentors after the 1st round result
announcement.
You will be provided with contacts of mentors. (preferably email ids)
Regular contact with the mentors can be made preferably through emails. Any
other ways of communication such as Phone calls, Skype chats, Google
Hangouts, etc. can be discussed with the respective mentor.
The teams will have to send a proper progress report within every two weeks
to team Abhyuday once they are alloted the mentors.

Please Note: Not contacting the allotted mentors will lead to certain point penalties
in the final pitching round (provided if the team qualifies for the same)

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Action Plan Submission

After the problem statement submission, participants with the help of their mentors
would start working on the solution part of the respective problem statement. All the
solutions can be broadly classified in these 2 categories:

A. Non-Profit Solution Model

B. Profitable Solution Model

In the action plan submission round, participants are expected to submit a brief overview
of the solution that they would be working on and the degree of completion in a format
that would be provided by us. The participants should have walked through their entire
solution once and thought about the process of implementation of the solution.

Final Presentation and judging

All the participants who will qualify in the "Action Plan Submission" round (2nd round) will
get an opportunity to present their solutions to a panel which includes judges, incubators,
and investors in the final round during Abhyuday’s Annual Social Fest. In the final
presentation, the participants are expected to present a minimum viable product and
customer validation of their solutions. It is not required of the participants to actually
implement the solution.
The teams will be judged on the following criteria:

1. Problem Analysis Approach

2. Solution Approach
3. Mentor's feedback
4. Practicality/feasibility of Solution
5. Practicality/feasibility of Solution
6. Customer Validation
7. Fitness quotient of the solution to the problem statement
8. Presentation

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Rules and guidelines

Eligibility and Team structure
1. There is no restriction on any individual to participate. Anyone, from students to
working professionals across the nation, can participate.
2. Any startup incorporated in or after 2017 is eligible to participate. You will be required
to submit proof of the same during the competition process.
3. Action Plan aims to promote startups that require assistance in funding, mentoring,
etc. Therefore startups who have raised external funding are not eligible to participate.
4. A team can register with a minimum of three and a maximum of eight members
including the Team Leader. Team leader will be the point of contact for any
correspondence for the team
5. The team should use their team leader’s email address for future correspondence and
must abide by timely instructions, guidelines, and ethics provided by Abhyuday with
general business ethics.

Problem Statement Submission guidelines

The submission have two major components:
1. Pictures and a video of stakeholder's interaction 
a) You need to submit photos (10-15) and 1 video clip (1-2min) about describing your
action plan. 
b) You must submit whether your action plan will be profit type model or non profit
type model.
2. Pre-decided Questionnaire for the problem statement. 
a) Teams must answer each question in the questionnaire of problem statement in
order to be considered for evaluation. (Questionnaire will be uploaded on webpage of
Action Plan) 
b) The answers to the questionnaire of problem statement can be saved and edited
repeatedly till the last day of submission i.e. 10th of October. The last saved answers
would be frozen at 11:59 pm 
c) Entries submitted after the deadlines will not be considered.

Note: The questionnaire of Action Plan is so designed that compiling the answers to the
questions would create a basic but complete image of the Idea. A participant is expected to
answer all questions in the questionnaire in detail.

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Solution-Submission guidelines
1. Mention the impact of the solution on the society and consequences of
implementing the idea
2. Compare your solution with any existing solution and mention how your idea will be
better than the current solution.
3. Mention the scalability and feasibility of each solution.
4. Give a detailed budget plan to implement your solution.
5. Mention constraints of each solution that you are expecting to face if you
implement that solution.
6. Mention one solution on which you will work for feasibility analysis and customer
validation.

Final presentation submission guidelines

1. The pitching to the judges shall preferably be a PDF/PPT, but any creative approach
will also be entertained (charts, videos, photos, stats or a simple speech). Also, include
the customer validation of the respective solution Note: A template ppt will be provided
to every team qualifying for the 3rd round. All teams must follow that template while
making their presentation for the final round.
2. Participants will submit their PPT/PDF 2 days before the time of reporting
3. The criteria are roughly as follows 
Business Model
Social Impact
Financials
Problem identification
Market Study and customer discovery
Sustainability of the impact

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Interaction Guidelines with Stakeholders
1. Please remember that you are there to try to understand their problems.
2. DO NOT talk to them in such a way that sounds like you know more, because you do
not.
3. As far as possible try to keep your questions in the “how”, “what”, “where”domain.
Delve into the “why” realm with care, it sounds offensive if spelled in the wrong tone.
People might just plainly refuse to answer regarding their intentions. Ask questions
with the “why not this” spirit with utmost care. Those questions have a dangerous
tendency to sound as if you are suggesting solutions to their problems which you are
yet to properly understand
4. Be polite with people. NEVER argue. NEVER preach, your aim is to understand.
5. Don’t fight amongst the team to ask them questions.
6. Ask them before clicking any picture or taking videos. (some people may feel
offended or may not be willing for video and pictures)

(*By registering for Action Plan, Abhyuday expressly disclaims any obligation or undertaking to
update or revise any forward-looking statements, targets or estimates contained in this concept
note to reflect any change in events, conditions, assumptions or circumstances on which any
such statements are based unless so required by applicable law. Also by participating in Action
Plan, each participating team and all of its team members agree to allow Abhyuday, IIT Bombay
to use their names, images, and information regarding the team's action plan, and prize
information in publicity and marketing)

Action Plan - A Social Entrepreneurship Competition