CBSE kickstarts ‘YOUTH IDEATHON 2023’ – The Largest Festival of Startup Ideas for School Students

The Central Board of Secondary Education (CBSE) launches the YOUTH IDEATHON 2023 at its New Delhi headquarters. Youth Ideathon is India's largest festival of startup ideas for school students, founded in 2021 by the Management Entrepreneurship Professional Skills Council (MEPSC) and ThinkStartup.

The 3rd edition of Youth Ideathon was inaugurated by Dr. Biswajit Saha, Director (Skill Development), Dr. Joseph Emmanuel, Director (Academics) and Dr. (Mrs.) Praggya M Singh, Director (Academics Assessment) on 6th Oct 2023 at CBSE Headquarters in the presence of the Top 5 winners of Incubation and Fellowship grants of Youth Ideathon 2022, who showcased and presented the details and progress of their innovative startups during the last one year of incubation by ThinkStartup.

Speaking at the gathering of educators, Dr. Biswajit Saha, Director (Skill Development), CBSE said, “Youth Ideathon strives to motivate and build change-makers who can take India to global leadership. This multistage festival of innovation not only strives to identify, showcase, and feature some of India’s brightest young entrepreneurial minds but will also work towards inculcating the spirit of innovation and entrepreneurship amongst schools. Youth Ideathon prepares young students to navigate the complexities of a dynamically changing world by focusing on society's changing needs.”

Dr. Joseph Emmanuel, Director (Academics) CBSE emphasized, “Since time immemorial, India has been a provider of simple innovative solutions to the world. For any society to be a world leader, it has to foster a culture of innovation and entrepreneurship. We want this to be introduced in schools. Youth Ideathon is an initiative in that direction. It is a comprehensive program that runs over a 6-week period where MEPSC and ThinkStartup run Faculty Development Workshops on teaching innovation and entrepreneurship in classrooms. Schools must take maximum benefit of this opportunity.”

At the launch event, Dr. (Mrs) Praggya M Singh, Director (Academics Assessment) CBSE said, “Youth Ideathon is a marathon of ideas. It introduces students, teachers, and schools to the world of innovation and startups. The five staged festival is a great learning opportunity for all”.

Ms. Shivani Singh Kapoor, Founder, of ThinkStartup, said “Building entrepreneurial thinking in young minds is the crying need of the hour. This can happen only in schools. Youth Ideathon is an endeavor in that direction. We have been inspired by the clarion call given by Prime Minister Narendra Modi to build Atma Nirbhar Bharat. This can happen only when we build the spirit of inquiry and innovation in youngsters while they are in schools. Through the Youth Ideathon, we incentivize the efforts of school students and teachers in the form of a Prototyping Award of ₹15,000 each for the top 25 teams and an incubation grant of ₹100,000 each to the top 10 teams.”

On this occasion, Sanjeeva Shivesh, Programme Director, Youth Ideathon said “Youth Ideathon is a comprehensive program designed to build and energize a startup ecosystem for high-schoolers. The 2022 edition attracted the participation of 95,000 school students from over 7000 schools. We also trained 12000 school teachers in teaching innovation, design, and entrepreneurship in classrooms. This year, we are seeing a greater interest amongst schools and students. The entire program is free for all. This has been made possible by support from our sponsors Bajaj Allianz Life, CONCOR Limited, Sheatwork, TIDES Business Incubator of IIT Roorkee, Macmillan, Unlock.fit, and several other partners.”

Youth Ideathon 2023 is a 5-stage festival of entrepreneurial thinking with exciting rewards and recognition opportunities for students, mentor teachers, and schools powered by Bajaj Allianz Life and CONCOR to show their commitment to the cause of new age education. The pinnacle of Youth Ideathon features a bonus 6th stage where Top 10 student teams are incubated into real-life business ventures. Through this initiative, ThinkStartup and MEPSC strive to guide youngsters, help them identify societal problems, propose solutions that are capable of addressing those problems, and most importantly help turn those prototypes into real-time solutions by providing them with financial assistance and relevant industry exposure.

Youth Ideathon is a team-based competition where any school student from classes 4th to 12th from all over India including CBSE-affiliated schools in foreign countries can participate in the Youth Ideathon for free by submitting their ideas on the following link - https://youthideathon.in/submit-your-idea.

About MEPSC

Management Entrepreneurship Professional Skills Council (MEPSC) is a Horizontal Sector Skills Council formed on 15th December 2015 under the Ministry of Skill Development and Entrepreneurship, Govt of India, to bridge the employability gap. MEPSC focuses on job roles that are sector and industry-agnostic. One of the key objectives is to promote entrepreneurship development across the country.

About ThinkStartup

ThinkStartup (TS) works in the area of entrepreneurship education for the K12 segment. It offers learning content, curriculum design, and new-age tools like ideathons and hackathons for school students all across India. It also offers a Student Entrepreneurship Lab and Startup Mentors to budding student entrepreneurs in Tier -1 /2 / 3 cities.