Launched by 4 IIT, IIM graduates.
By Global India Newswire
PHILADELPHIA: A group of young entrepreneurs who founded the first ever chain of backpackers’ hostels in Rajasthan has won the Wharton India Economic Forum Startup Competition in the “post-proof of concept” category, on Saturday.
Zostel hostels in Jodhpur and Jaipur have private rooms and dormitories, with lockers and Wi-Fi. The chain targets young travelers, in the age group of 16-34 years, and its rates start at 349 rupees per night.
Zostel was launched last year by four IIT and IIM graduates—Dharamveer Singh, Akhil Malik, Tarun Tiwai and Paavan Nanda—with a capital of less than $70,000. It soon plans to expand to 10 Indian cities, across the country.
Zostel beat out four other finalists: Qlicket, a tech firm that deploys Wi-Fi hotspots in India; Samaan, a Mobile Medical Van that takes basic health services to rural areas; TargetingMantra, which provides a personalization platform for online businesses; and Zoom Car, a membership-based, car rental service that rents cars by the hour or by the day.
In the “idea” category of the competition, two startups Wishguise and Level Counsel, were named joint winners. The former is a “consumption model for designer Indian ethnic wear.” and Level Counsel offers higher education counseling services to Indian students.
The Startup Competition was a first for Wharton India Economic Forum, now in its 18th year. The theme of this year’s forum, held at the historic Union Hall in Philadelphia, was “India: Time to reboot.”
On Saturday, the speakers included Ravi Venkatesan, Former Chairman of Microsoft India; Arundhati Bhattacharya, Chairperson of the State Bank of India; and Vikram Malhotra, Chairman of the Americas at McKinsey & Company. Venkatesan and Bhattacharya addressed the forum via video link.
In his opening keynote, Venkatesan said the next general elections are going to be pivotal for India’s future, a point that was echoed by a number of other speakers throughout the day.
Venkatesan, who is on the boards of Infosys and AB Volvo, also said that despite India losing some of its sheen in recent years, the country remains a great place for global companies to do business. If these companies want to succeed in India, they need to innovate on their business models and have a different approach to leadership and talent developments.
According to Malhotra, human development is India’s biggest challenge. He named five ‘I’s as key to India’s future: infrastructure, inefficiency, innovation, inequality and independence.
Addressing a panel Former Planning Commission Secretary Rajeeva Ratna Shah said despite all the obstacles faced by the country in the past few years, India’s fundamentals are “really good.” He added: “I see India bouncing back to 8 percent in 3 years.”
Speaking on the panel on the “NRI: Leveraging your Roots,” Kanika Dewan, founder of Ka Design Atelier and President of the Bahrain-based Bramco Group, referred to the “reverse brain drain” that India’s infrastructure sector has enabled. She pointed out that 80 percent of the project management team and 90 percent of the architect team that worked in on the new Mumbai International Airport was non-Indian. Dewan’s company was a major contractor of the Mumbai airport as well as Terminal 3 at the Delhi International Airports.
Wharton India Economic Forum, launched in 1996, is one of the best-known India-focused annual conferences in the United States. The American Bazaar was one of the media sponsors of the conference this year.