The initiative, sponsored by McKinsey and focussed on information technologyand e-commerce in India, is asking young entrepreneurs to come in with theirideas. At the end of it all, 15-20 viable ideas will be filtered out overthe next couple of months with possible venture capital (VC) funding.

Alexander said such initiatives were pertinent in the Indian context giventhe ground realities that exist. A typical Indian Internet start up forinstance, he said, takes off with an idea. The idea is funded with a mixtureof personal savings and borrowings. On an average, five years down the line,professional funding, perhaps in the form of a VC steps in.

As against this, in Silicon Valley, professionalism is inducted early on andwithin 18 months most projects evolve into full-fledged business outfits,Alexander pointed out.

India Venture 2000 though, he said, will attempt to balance thesedistortions. After viable ideas have been isolated, participants are putthrough the paces by a team of coaches drawn from a pool of ITentrepreneurs, professionals and McKinsey consultants.

Chrysalis, ICICI Ventures, Infinity and Walden have expressed theirwillingness to pump in approximately $180 million into these plans.The advisory board has on its panel people like KV Kamath, managingdirector, ICICI, Rajesh Jain of IndiaWorld.com and Narayana Murthy, managingdirector, Infosys.

Educational institutes like the IITs and IIMs are being roped in to be partof the project. Elaborating, Alexander said that Stanford University hadover the years spawned powerhouses like Silicon Graphics, Cisco Systems,Hewlett Packard and Sun Microsystems. In India, however, there are no suchrecorded instances, he pointed out. Hence, the move to solicit participationfrom educational institutes. Ideas can be submitted onhttp://www.indiaventure2000.com.