The finals and presentation ceremony are scheduled for April 7-9, 2001. The competition is about to embark on its second selection round at this point.IIT Bombay's e-cell has also put together a few major media and technology partnerships which will add the necessary industry participation to the event. Investment bank Avendus (formerly Coolstartups), CNN and The Financial Express alongwith Hewlett Packard, Intel, Jumpstartup and Vanenburg comprise the team of media, corporates and VCs that have helped put the event together.

Saurabh Srivastava of Infinity Technology Investments, Sanjay Anandram of Jumpstartup, Siddharth Das of Intel Capital, Rajesh Jain of Indiaworld and Ajit Shelat, CTO, SwitchOn Networks will be on the judges panel. Additionally, the organisers plan to leverage the IIT Bombay Alumni network to add more muscle to the panel of judges.

Avendus will provide a technology input, which is basically a Web-enabled platform to receive business plans which will be standardised in accordance with a pre-determined format.

The winners of the event will be flown to Silicon Valley and the total prize money stands at Rs 1 million, which is about 20 times what it was last year, according to the organisers.

This is the third year that the competition will be held. The last two competitions have resulted in six winners, currently operating out of the IIT campus.

Infinity, HP, Jumpstartup, Intel and Vanenburg have also chipped in with capital to make this event a success.