[Music] [Music] can I start hi hi um good evening to everybody who's joined us here um I'm Shivani and I work with um the awesome team that makes tataa imagination challenge possible um we're happy that so many of you have made it to the third round which is the pitch evaluation round uh of season five of diic very happy that around three lakh of you um you know more than three lakh of you decided to um you know participate in this event um we're all very excited to um you know get the top 50 to Bombay House um in November we started tic 5 years ago with the idea that a small change is enough to move the world um what we expect from our um you know finalists what we expect from this round um what is the secret source that makes one um you know be a part of the top 50 or the top 13 um to talk about that and a lot more um we have two people today with us so while we've had quite a few um you know people through the Tata imagination challenge join us here in the group as a part of the T we have two of them um here with us today evening um we have ragav Gupta from the 21 batch um of TC uh he is in T and is currently in Titan uh he's from IMA uh we also have Rak sink uh from IM am shilong from the 23 batch um she was also uh the brains and the bronze behind um last year's tiic um so welcome Rak and ragav and thank you so much for joining us today um so task Journey so far how has the group been for you all um what all fun and learning it has entailed um and then we'll take it forward from there thank you thanks thanks Shivani for the lovely introduction uh feels like some sort of poetic justice to me because this is where my task Journey started uh roughly four years back through the tataa imagination Challenge and since then U I've never looked back uh I think what has stood out for me is the diversity of opportunities that the group provides uh one is through the four stin in the very first year of our joining uh so I got to experience four very different group companies and even within those four very different functions uh right ranging from marketing to strategy and Ops and uh now in my full-time role at Titan as well I get to take a lot of ownership for the work that I drive and the role here is also involving something new and diverse pretty much every day because I'm in Innovation uh so all in all I think it's it's great to be back here and uh would really love to help anyone in the way that my mentors did four years back thanks ragav uh nice to hear that over to you Rak uh firstly I would like to thank the team for giving us this opportunity to share our experiences with a larger audience we hope uh this session will help the participants in some capacity uh moving on to my journey with Tas so far I joined a little over a year ago and it's been truly transformational um when I joined Tas I was not very comfortable with data Excel sheets data visualization and all of those things Shivani knows that very well but one year later I joined Air India as lead marketing analytics so this is the kind of steep growth and learning I've experienced uh Tas gives you immense exposure Like It prepares you to solve for any sort of business problem uh every 3 months your city changes company changes industry changes roles changes so um and I got the opportunity to work with Tata steel Tata Suns um Air India and Titan in uh domains such as um strategy program management data analytics and sales all the projects were EXT extremely challenging and interesting like task office places you in all the interesting places like I enjoyed all my uh for stance uh talking about what keeps me going uh ever since I joined uh Tas Air India was my dream company I wanted to work in aviation and um and since Air India is going under transformation every day is a new day you get to learn so many new things so many exciting projects keep coming up so like um I look forward to coming to office every single day great um nice to nice to hear that uh Rak and ragab I'm I'm very uh of course uh closely aware of the kind of work and impact that both of you do which is quite fabulous um so as um you know most of you who've joined uh you know that we also have some uh fun vouchers uh to give away today so I'll ask a question and whoever um you know quickly answers uh the unstopped team is here and they will um you know ensure that whoever is the fastest fingers first here gets the voucher all right so my first question is and this is this comes from rak's stuff uh who is the mascot of Air India what is the mask of anyone has any idea okay so I think Sak nagpal soak nagpal sorry is someone who's answered first so congratulations so much Studio voucher is on your way um the next question will um you know come in some time um now I move back to our speakers and let's go back to your uh tiic Journey um if you can both um you know elaborate on what inspired you to you know participate in the Tata imagination Challenge and uh you know what was your trigger to sort of uh do that and um you know go forward from there so anyone can go first uh sure so for me I I'll take this at two parts first I think it was the competition itself there's a lot to look forward to U I think all the rounds are quite engaging and interesting especially the um ideation round that we are focusing on today uh I I was always someone who uh thought of new ideas and I like to participate in competitions involving pitching of new ideas uh so it fit very well with my uh interests also all the exposure that you get if you make it to the finale uh in terms of meeting the Tata groups leadership connecting with all the other finalists as well so all of that was very much exciting and of course there's a handsome cash price as well uh second part of it has got to do with Tas which both of us already covered so it's gives you a straight entry into the PPI round for TAS U which was one of the companies the company I was dreaming for uh so I think all in all there's a lot to look forward to and there's something in it for everyone I would say over to Rak U so my reasons are also similar to that of ragas so um there were two broad reasons um the first one being that I really like the format of the competition um in all the other case competitions you're given a problem statement and um the issue with that is that you might you may or may not be that aligned or passionate about the problem statement however in tata imagination challenge you get to decide both the problem and the solution so no other case competition gives you that sort of freedom and the second reason similar to ragav that um this was my only shot at uh T since T does not come to my campus so I did not want to miss out on this golden opportunity all right heard you Rak so uh yes um so well all of you who've joined I'm sure you know what the round three is all about um you know and U so we are expecting you to make a two-minute video Pitch you've got to answer three questions there um you know what is the idea that you are uh working on um how it it will um you know it will get executed and who is it is it for so who is the beneficiary of it or what is the customer segment or what is the you know the group of people that you are sort of targeting with the idea right um we will take questions uh towards the end of the session um now um Rak do you want to and then rakov do you want to tell us um you know when and and how you sort of came up with the idea when of course I'm sure was the idea pitch window or maybe even before that so uh what was uh what was your um you know fun Journey towards that sure Shani so I had pitched an employment platform uh for people who are differently abled the lgbtq community and women with career gaps uh there were certain uh experiences that collectively inspired me um inspired my idea for an employment platform um as a kid I used to visit a bakery that was uh fully operated by uh people who were differently abled and I always used to feel that they have so much potential but they don't not do not have enough opportunities and years later when I entered MBA I observed a significant shift in the way companies uh approach hiring these days um they are increasingly focusing on um diverse hiring um and they also want to give opportunities to people from the lgbtq community women with career gaps so uh this trend sort of highlighted a growing demand uh for inclusive hiring so that is how I thought about this idea and I thought like there is demand and there is Supply so why not work on this idea uh so mine was an AGR Tech idea and it was a platform which enabled retail investors to actually put money in farmlands and um so I I was very actively investing from my college days in different kinds of financial instruments so one day it just struck me that if I as a retail investor want to put some money into let's say agriculture or a Farmland uh how would I do that so it it really started from from that personal experience and then I did a quite a bit of secondary research and uh I also worked on this project uh in one of my academic courses in second year at IMA uh and then the competition was tataa imagination challenge was also around the same time so it all fit perfectly for me that way I think uh terms of ideation a personal connect really helps I think even in rak's case there was a good understanding of the problem who it impacts how how large is the impact and how it benefits all the stakeholders involved so I really went deep into that aspect and uh tried to make a solution which had benefits for both the farmers as well as the investors uh so that is something I would urge everyone to do as well thanks uh thanks ragav so before we move on to our next segment uh we have another voucher winning question um so I hope you all are ready with your fingers on your keyboard um so the question is in which Indian city was the first zudio store opened do we have our winner yet in this open book exam arbas so arbas is our winner for this and um the first winner was soach okay all right so we have two winners till now um hoping a lot of ladies will participate in the upcoming questions as well um all right so the next segment uh you know we want to talk about um uh you know what all aspects you considered while you were fine-tuning your idea and then how did you articulate it in a you know 2 minute pitch so whoever wants to go for all right I'll I'll go first um so I think the first and the most basic step I took was to address the five ws I think everybody should address those five ws what why where when who it sets the base it sets the foundation and um all the essential as and covers all the essential aspects of the idea next I backed up my idea with numbers since I was proposing an employment platform I included statistics like um India has almost three CR people with disability out of which only 1.3 are employable so that's a big set 1.3 CR people with disability are employable but only 34 lakh of them are currently employed so this shows that there's a there's a large number of people out there who are not employed so the these kind of numbers uh helped me make my pitch more convincing and uh finally I tested my pitch with my parents sibling and friends so I realized that um initially I was trying to say a lot of things in 2 minutes and then I realized that quality over quantity so I trimmed down my pitch and I only kept the impact impactful um impactful um sentences and um this also helped me ensure that um see uh when the evaluator evaluates your idea that person may or may not have a background about the industry or the field of the idea so you should make sure that um in your pitch whenever whatever your pitching the person in front understands even if that person is not from that background so I think I think these are the key three four things I focused on to fine tune my idea so very very valuable points and I resonate with those I'll just give a couple of additional points that I kept into consideration uh on the 2minute video Pitch so you have to understand that every evaluator will be going through dozens and dozens of videos right so there needs to be some sort of a hook in what you're creating and that hook can stem from maybe a very uh big impact problem statement it could be a very Innovative solution to a pressing challenge which everyone is aware of or it could be in your style of delivery or something of that sort there needs to be some sort of a uh hook which uh gets the evaluators attention in my opinion and on the overall idea so there are a lot of different aspects to consider when you're venturing into any new business or trying to make a business out of an idea uh including aspects like scalability feasibility uh what is the competitive advantage that you have uh so you you of course have to work on all of that but the underlying I think if you have to sum it up in one line would you be willing to start it as a business of your own so if if the answer to that is yes and if you have enough conviction in your idea that one day maybe you can start that idea has a proper business of your own then I think you're ready to uh pitch it in the tataa imagination challenge as well thanks uh thanks ROV so I think uh clearly a lot of you know depth of thought and a lot of grind has gone into uh you know creating those videos right from making your friends and family guinea pigs of your idea pitch to uh you know really putting yourself out there and thinking that hey would I pick it up someday um all right so before we move on to our next segment we have another voucher winning question um so the question is which Tata luminary was the recipient of the bhat ratna the highest civilian Honor by government of India on Republic Day 1992 I feel like amitab bachan Akay Sharma so Akay Sharma has answered this question congratulations aay you also get zudio voucher um okay so we move on to our next segment so you know uh I mean a little putting you in the spot kind of a question uh ragav and Rak and with that we'll end is um you know what do you think set your pitch apart from um you know as as you said right the the many uh submissions that uh you know that come so what do you think was The X Factor and how you went about it so I think a couple of things for me one is the problem itself is was very large it is still very large and uh everyone is aware of it I back backed that with numbers as well and the solution seemed to uh provide a good you know solve for the problem so I think that is one uh the second and I think very important for many of the people who are joining us today so when I did secondary research about this problem statement and I read about it a lot through various sources I developed an understanding but then I also went into Prim primary research so I spoke to a few Farmers I met them I also met a few farmer producer organizations and I met a few fellow retail investors that really provided the next level of insight and depth uh which I think really differentiated My overall solution and Pitch so uh for me that was the edge really understanding the stakeholders relating to my challenge uh so there might one single stakeholder who was key to your challenge or there might be multiple stakeholders in my case it was the farmers and the retail investors uh so meating them getting to know their pain points and then also doing some sort of a rapid prototyping exercise involving them I think staying in touch with them on a regular basis really helped me to give the idea and the pitch the shape that it got in the final presentation I think ragav and I had a pretty similar approach um so after identifying the problem I wanted to solve um I focused on understanding the pain points of both the hiring managers and the job uh Seekers to develop a better understanding um and to create a solution that they truly wanted so I invested a lot of time I reached out to a lot of of people on LinkedIn and I just um tried to understand the entire ecosystem from the perspective of a hiring manager and a job Seeker so pretty similar to what ragav did I think uh others should also you know once you zero boil down on what you want to do you should reach out to a lot of experts in that field get your get your feedback and see how feasible or implementable your idea is and I think that'll lay a stronger Foundation all right uh okay so a lot of a lot of research both primary and secondary uh and I think I think what you know you're talking about spans not only during the pit submission but post that uh phase as well right when you refine the um all right so we move to um our last question after which we will open for you guys to ask us questions uh so since we started with a question question from Rak stff we get something from ragav stuff um so the last question and today's last opportunity to win a studio voucher is which Titan sub brand is a leading player in the Indian jewelry market pray ganguli so pray ganguli has won the last Studio voucher of the day um and with that um you know our side of the uh you know segment today is um wraps up any questions that um you all want to ask us uh we're around uh here for the next few minutes uh please feel to um direct us do we need to add PowerPoint slides in our video pitch or just plain front camera video is enough yes absolutely just plain video is enough that is also not just if you if you heard what these two said that also takes a lot of effort um and a lot of retakes so um yes that is enough uh we don't need PowerPoint slides in the middle you can add it's your call but it's not mandatory um okay so there's this next one uh ragab or AK do you want to take how much depth Rue model needs to be and um so what you are answering and as we are answering three questions in written what should we pitch in the video apart from this so ragav R you want to take this one and then I can add yeah sure maybe I'll start and Rak can add so I think it really depends on the specific idea and what is important for your idea like in my case in the video since you only have 2 minutes you cannot possibly cover every aspect you have to focus on the most important ones for my idea it was about the impact that the pro problem statement creates a basic idea of the overall solution that I'm proposing and why it is important for the two sets of stakeholders which are the farmers and Retail investors so I need not I didn't really get into uh the revenue model and financials and uh technology oriented aspects uh while the detailed uh maybe your uh answer will allow for that but not the video Pitch and maybe if you make it to the finale you you'll have to probably cover all of that much more detail but in the video you can restrict yourself to the most important aspects of your idea only R you can add to that yeah even I did not focus that much because we only have have 2 minutes so my key Focus area was to um highlight the problem and uh emphasize that the problem is worth solving for so that's how I try to use my 2 minutes but if you have a revenue model in place and if you've already worked on it it it's always good to have it yeah all right um so the next question does the idea necessarily have to be a profitable venture or does social impact Venture also work yes social impact Venture also works it's not necessarily about a profit or necessarily about a nonprofit idea for that matter uh the idea itself is the more important thing and the other things are um you know really periphery uh to the idea um any views on that ragav or AK yes and I think a lot of the times it's considered that if if a business is looking at a social cause it cannot be profitable which I don't think is true there are very very effective business models out there in the social space that are working for uh efforts like water conservation uh reduction of unemployment a forestry and all of that so it can always be a combination of the two as well or it can be on either side so D can also add to that yeah um like even if it's not profitable it should not be loss making either like it should be sustainable I think that is one thing the candidates can keep in mind other than that I don't think profit numbers because even my idea was related to creating a social impact so I did not focus much on how I will make money rather I focused on how I will be able to create a positive impact while sustaining the business yeah that sounds good um so there's another question do we have to make a working prototype or just form an idea no so I don't think you require a prototype and uh if I remember last year uh some people wanted to get their prototype but to keep it fair for all we did not allow prototypes but in case if there is any change in the format maybe Shivani can help you with that yeah I mean the idea is at again the idea is at the core uh you know the final pict is not about you know showing your prototype as such um you know it is about what the idea is and have you thought it through from various angles is it well researched like ragav and Rak shared uh ragab do you want to add to that one yeah it's it's not a must of course uh but if you feel that it would Aid your pitch in some way or maybe if you make it to the next round and your presentation in some way then do go for it like I didn't have anything of that sort for my two minute pitch but in the final round I had some wireframes of the uh platform that I was proposing so that that helped the evaluators to get a clear perspective of what I was trying to visualize so they didn't have to make that effort of visualization it was much easier so just see how it helps in communic communicating your idea across in the shortest possible time yeah I think I think it's it's about you know how you can communicate your idea best and with the least amount of other resources the simpler uh wellth thought through your idea is I think U you know that will help um there's a question on what are the parameters that our pitch will be evaluated on so we can't give you a cheat sheet here so um just you know just all the tips that ragab and Rak here are sharing and there are a lot of other U you know resources that uh we have shared in the past um you know you can look at Tas official and uh that we will be sharing uh in the coming um you know days you can always refer to that but I'm definitely not sh sharing what parameters it is evaluated on uh we can move on to the next one which says can I include what different data companies can do to help make the idea a success not mandatory but uh you can always add uh Rak ROV you have a view not not necessary uh in anyway so my idea wasn't really related to the tataa companies in any way and and I I didn't even try to make that sort of a pitch anywhere so I think you can if you feel that it fits well and is aligned with the value proposition of an existing tataa company sure otherwise you can uh make it completely independent as well uh likewise but you should make sure that you have done your research like you never know you say pitching something about tat Motors and the panel in front of you is from tataa Motors so then please ensure that you've done your background research well in that case other than that since my idea was also not related to Tata company so yeah maybe if you have something you can always bring it to the table yeah yeah I think I think what ragav said fits well here if it naturally fits all right but otherwise that's not a parameter let me answer the previous question indirectly in a way it's not a parameter that you are evaluated on um okay um can I include okay this is done how big should my ideas's potential impact be how big in terms of market share or number of people impacted should my impact be I think uh you know going by the two examples of people uh you know here um you know it can be a small set it can be a large set um that's that's not really uh Again by elimination let me say that's not really a parameter you're necessarily you know uh evaluated on on how many people it is um you know necessarily um impacting positively uh but ragav Rak do you guys want to share something did did that thought come into your mind when you were making the pitch uh to some extent yes but uh so mine was an idea which impacted many people uh it impacted many Farmers or it was it had the potential to impact many farmers at the same time it had the potential to impact many investors but uh having said that they were my peers some of my peers who also were winners of the competition so they they had chosen very uh Niche fields or Niche sectors where it's not necessarily about the quantity of people who will be impacted but at the same time in that particular sector they were making a deep impact a profound impact back so you can go go for it either way of course it has to uh be impactful enough that there's a business case for it and like I said if you are willing to start an own business uh with that idea I think that should be the Benchmark that you look for uh yeah like I would say it is very subjective and um the at least the number should be sizable as in you shouldn't be pit idea for a group of thousand people I think that that's a very small number to go ahead with but um yeah overall I think uh while short listing your idea if you feel you're very passionate about the idea even if the sample size is small I think you should still go ahead with it because uh your passion gets reflected in your video and in your interview so I have noticed that a lot of people reach out to me on LinkedIn and they ask me to short list an idea for them like they'll give me a set of three ideas and they'll ask me to short list but to be honest nobody can ever short list an idea for you you have to truly believe in your idea uh and when I discuss my idea with my friends and uh they did not feel that the potential impact would be significant so my friends rejected my idea so if I would have you know rejected my idea I wouldn't have been here today so I think you should truly believe in what you're pitching I think that's that's more important okay okay so what we'll do we are at 6:40 now we'll take up one last question uh which is what's more important a unique idea or a generic idea with a unique solution Rak you want to take that one now this is a tricky one I think it's it I I would say it depends and MBA answer to that it's a typical MBA answer it depends so um if you're pitching a unique idea you should Al like a unique idea could be like you'll you you know you'll make a Metro from earth to Venus it's very unique but Is it feasible can you actually do it so uniqueness is good but it should also be you know uh you should be able to execute it I think that's the gist of it yeah yeah aligned with what Rak mentioned so uniqueness is one of the ways to uh highlight your business plan but that need not be the only way so uh there are many other ways of uh making a business bit successful and I think that gets into the parameters which Shivani has been indirectly telling everyone about uh so uh in my case also I I don't think the idea was very very unique as such but the whole package uh along with the stakeholder understanding and uh the primary research the demonstration of the idea all of that made it successful it wasn't so much the uniqueness alone yeah I think I think both of you've you know covered it quite well uh it's not necessarily that you have to uh you know have this indefinite search for an idea that's necessarily unique and has never been done before um you know I think as long as it is well researched uh and you have a lot of um you know um faith in it and you have covered all angles uh of that idea I think I think it works well um I know there are a lot of other questions and I think some are around last year's videos so you can um you know find them on YouTube um and I think the team has shared uh you know the I mean the link um you can find it on the Tata Tas YouTube page um you can also um you know go to Tas official on LinkedIn and you can find uh all the previous year's um you know ideas of the top 50 at least which were um you know sort of shared um on that page so I think with that we close the session um I know quite a lot of you had joined uh thank you so much um again thanks a lot for all the um you know love and faith for the tataa imagination challenge we're really humbled to see you know the the increasing number of participation every year and we really looking forward to a lot of bright ideas coming our way um you know from all all of you who have been shortlisted for the next round um all the best to all of you congratulations to all the winners of the day and um big thank you uh ragav and Rak um I know um you all are getting a lot of DMS from people to um you know mentor and advice um so with that in mind we had you know kept this session I hope it has helped all of you um good luck and I hope to see most of you uh at Bombay House when we have the finale thank you so much you Happ