Four NMIMS students' idea won the prize at the Global Social Entrepreneurship Competition in the US

"We offered a Nano-type food product for the slumdwellers and it won a global award," said a jubilant Sreejit NG.

Sreejit and his colleagues Ankit Jain, Siddharth Bedi, Rahul Kumar Agrawal — all students of Narsee Monjee Institute of Management Studies (NMIMS) — won the $10,000 grand prize at the Global Social Entrepreneurship Competition (GSEC) at the University of Washington Foster School of Business. The product they offered was a full nutritious meal for slumdwellers containing rice, lentils, vegetable peels and jaggery for just Rs5.

GSEC invites students every year from around the world to find creative, unorthodox solutions to problems of poverty in the developing world. Entrepreneurs from different world universities come with ideas to tackle poverty.

Talking about their award-winning idea, Sreejit said, "During our primary survey in Dharavi and Juhu slums, we found that a poor individual spends around Rs10 per day for one meal. Our aim was to reduce different layers of cost and bring down the price to Rs5."

"We did to the meals, what Tatas did with the Nano," he added.

Conceptualised by Ankit, the team thoroughly researched the topic before presenting the project. "We figured out the most efficient operation that would remove layers of cost from each stage of the process and make the food product affordable for the underprivileged," said Sreejit

Ankit added that the food would be provided in a ready-to-eat packet which would eliminate the cost of plates. Each of these packets would serve 800 calories. "Also, we would be empowering women within the slum area by hiring them to compile these packets while paying them a higher wage rate and providing them with free food packets for their family."

In the beginning of the competition, the groups were told that the criteria to judge the event would be the social return on an investment. Also, the idea should help in poverty alleviation in developing world, financial sustainability, and feasibility of implementation of the idea.

Apart from the grand prize won by the NMIMS team, there were other categories in health and investor's choice that was won by Brown University, USA, for their project on the use of solar cycle in solar ovens; the West Africa Consumer-Protection Grid that won the award for investor's choice was from Princeton University.

Yogita Rao/ DNA-Daily News & Analysis Source: 3D Syndication