CFE – Student Competitions

Startup Ashoka

It’s amazing what can happen when 200 budding entrepreneurs get together over a weekend. Dreams come to life, and a whole new array of possibilities unfold. Welcome to Startup Ashoka! A weekend that promises intense yet fun-filled activities, giving participants a sneak peek into the world of entrepreneurship. By the end of the weekend friendships will be forged, companies will emerge, and lifelong memories will be made.

The perfect recipe for creative chaos & incredible ideas: 200 budding entrepreneurs, a healthy competition, and a power-packed weekend! Brain wheels turn, creativity sprouts, ideas come to life and a whole new world of possibilities unfold.  Welcome to Startup Ashoka! A weekend that promises intense yet fun-filled activities, giving participants a sneak peek into the world of entrepreneurship. By the end of the weekend friendships are forged, entrepreneurial ventures emerge, pragmatic lessons of the business world are learnt and lifelong memories are made.

Startup Ashoka 2023: The Big Idea

Startup Ashoka 2022: Shark Tank

Startup Ashoka 2021: The Online Version

Startup Ashoka 2019-2020

Startup Ashoka 2018

Startup Ashoka 2017

Startup Ashoka 2016

Hult Prize

The Hult Prize is a start-up accelerator for impact entrepreneurship, a partnership between the Hult International Business School and the Clinton Global Initiative. It brings together university students from around the globe to solve the world’s most pressing issues through innovative product pitches and company launches. Each year the Hult Prize provides $1million in seed capital to the winning team’s newly created company.

​​Hult Prize at Ashoka University – The campus round of Hult Prize, Ashoka University addressed the topic: “Harnessing the power of energy to transform the lives of 10 million people”. 10+ teams competed, presenting their ideas aimed at creating sustainable social ventures around the prompt.

The winning team, MC Squared (Solar Sakhi), consisted of Atitya Ragul.V, Neeraj Adhithya K.S., Twinkle Malhan and Gangatharan. Their idea was to build a compact and cost-effective Stand Alone Power System (SAPS) based on solar technology for rural primary schools. The first runner-up, team Jugaad AC, comprised of Tanisha Katara, Surendra Singh and Sourabh Tuwani. They aimed to build eco-coolers with plastics without the use of electricity. The second runner-up, team Project Urja, consisted of Vishal Ajjampur, Jayjit Das, and Vikrant Kadian, and they aimed to harness the power of clean biogas energy to innovate how we grow, cook and dispose of food.

The event was judged by Mr Anurag Kanti and Mr Anirban Roy. Mr Anurag Kanti is the founder of INDIA Redefined, a collaborative platform for citizens, corporates and NGOs and an advisor/mentor for start-ups, social enterprises and incubators. Mr Anirban Roy is the Managing Director of SEED, an end to end CSR implementing agency. 

The winning team, MC Squared, competed in the Regional Finals in Singapore in March 2018. Apart from MC Squared, three other teams from the Hult Prize event represented Ashoka in India National Finals in Delhi in April 2018.

The winning team will go on to represent Ashoka University at the regional finals, and then compete for the big prize if selected.

Berkeley India Policy Challenge

Institute of International Studies, UC Berkeley, in partnership with the Centre For Entrepreneurship(CfE), Ashoka University, organized the Berkeley India Policy Challenge where participants from all across the country submitted their innovative projects to solve India’s most pressing policy issues. The selected teams presented their papers in the Berkeley India Conference on October 7th and 8th at UC Berkeley, California.

In the 2017 round, Surendra Singh from the Young India Fellowship, and Sumer Sharma from the Undergraduate batch of Ashoka University qualified for the Berkeley India Conference. Both got an opportunity to interact with a panel of experts from diverse fields and political backgrounds. They presented their solutions to policymakers and experts like Siddharth Nath Singh, Karan Thapar and Montek Singh Ahluwalia.

Ashoka Pillar Award

The Ashoka Pillar Award introduced by one of the founder trustees in collaboration with the InfoEdge Centre for Entrepreneurship aims to address real world challenges faced by humanity every day. The vision is to create a platform that starts by crowdsourcing ideas which then leads to crowdsourcing funds for the winning idea, all of which use the global network to solve problems for those living on the margin. Incubation of the winning ideas is one of the top priorities of the centre.

The inaugural edition of Ashoka Pillar Award contest invited innovative project proposals to solve the crisis of worsening air quality in our country. The winners were awarded 6.5 lakh INR to take the idea forward. The Chief Guest of the event was Sonam Wangchuk, Founding Director of the Students’ Educational and Cultural Movement of Ladakh (SECMOL) and Ramon Magsaysay Award Winner 2018.