What's common between Bill Gates and Michael Dell, besides the fact that they are two of the richest men on Earth having made their fortunes from computer software and hardware respectively?

It's the fact that they are both college-dropouts.

Gates dropped out of Harvard University, while Dell left the University of Texas when his homegrown business PC's Limited started raking in profits.

If these two had been current students of IIT – Bombay, they certainly wouldn't have left college, but probably would have participated wholeheartedly in the proceedings of its entrepreneurship cell, quite unimaginatively named The Entrepreneurship Cell.

Even if imagination is lacking in the nomenclature, it's certainly in abundance in its activities. From arranging lectures by business gurus, to organizing highly popular business plan competitions and then providing incubation to the winning ideas, The Entrepreneurship Cell of IIT – Bombay seems set to kick-start the entrepreneurship revolution in India.

Eureka! (with the exclamation mark) is the crowning glory in the cell's annual calendar. It is publicised as ''the biggest Business Plan Competition in India and one of the Top Five in the Asia-Oceanic region in terms of participation, prizes and resources''. With a participation list spanning almost all the premier institutions throughout the country, and a total prize money amount of Rs14 lakhs, it can certainly afford to describe itself in superlatives.

However, students are not the only participants in this premier contest to find the Sabeer Bhatias of the future. Some people find themselves bitten by the entrepreneurship bug only after having gone through the corporate grind for some time. Eureka! 2007 finds a healthy amount of participation from this group as well.

The entire competition is divided into three stages. There is an initial submission of proposals that are vetted and the list of participants pruned down considerably. The short-listed candidates then undergo intensive mentoring with industry leaders after which they submit draft proposals, and then meet their mentors face-to-face to get their opinions and accordingly submit detailed business plans.

In the final stage, the surviving candidates submit their detailed business plans and make presentations that are evaluated to determine the list of winners.

In its current edition, the ninth since inception, Eureka! received over a thousand initial applications, of which forty were invited to the Mentors Meet on 9 December 2007, where domain-b had the opportunity to meet some of the participants, and mentors, some of whom have been erstwhile participants themselves. These participants are required to submit their detailed plans by 24th December 2007, with the finals being scheduled for 3rd February 2008.

The top three business plans win cash awards of Rs.4 lakh, Rs.2.5 lakh and Rs.1.5 lakh respectively, besides incubation support to convert their dreams into reality. Also, taking India's vast rural populace into consideration, special prizes have been instituted for winning entries in the Rural Section. The Best Student Entry is also to be recognized separately.

Domain-b sat in for some time at one of the mentoring sessions, where mentor Anand Luniya, CIO, Seed Fund (a venture capital organisation) was explaining the feasibility of participant Anshul Gupta's business plan to him. Anshul, a final-year student of IIM – Kozhikode has decided not to sit for the lucrative placements next year, and aims to start his own venture. Luniya, having been through the entire gamut of experiences involved in entrepreneurship and fund-seeking, was well placed to advise Anshul on the viability of his plan.

Anshul intends to supply hand-cranked laptops to villages, and also arrange content for the same. He thinks that content providers like Yahoo! and Google would subsidise the cost of the hardware in lieu of a potential massive market for their services.

Luniya explained that for a product to succeed, not only has the product got to add value to the customer, but also an ''ecosystem'' must exist to support the product's operation. As an example, he cited his own experience of co-founding an education portal, which, though successful, suffered due to infrastructural bottlenecks. He encouraged Anshul to conduct research on the ground to identify potential threats and opportunities, saying that one cannot proceed assuming ideal conditions.

Luniya thought that Anshul was taking on too much on his plate – hardware, infrastructure and content. He asked Anshul to concentrate on his strengths, which Anshul readily conceded was software and content. Luniya also gave some ideas for content suitable to the rural customer, such as regular information on crop and weather patterns. He remarked that content need not be expensive to be popular, citing the massive popularity of religious and astrology channels with dubious production values.

As Anshul continued to have his ideas fine-tuned, we moved on to talk to two previous winners of Eureka!, and who were now present as mentors. We first talked to Roshan D'Silva, the first prize winner in 2000, and now head of the telecom software company Myzus, which is his winning business plan converted to reality.

Myzus is a leading player in the field of mobile solutions on GSM networks, and now boasts an impressive clientele spanning sixteen countries. Myzus was founded by Roshan and his batch-mate Sandeep Srivastava while studying at IIT – Bombay. Winning Eureka! gave a fillip to their dreams and under the able guidance of Professor DB Pathak, they were able to transform a successful business plan into a successful company.

We also spoke to 2005 winner Rohit Nalwade, who is seeking to revolutionise the way we shop with his start-up Consumer Vision. He's aiming to bring technology on an unprecedented scale to the retail arena, in the process making shopping a more rewarding experience for both the merchant and the consumer. By incorporating RFID chips in customer smart cards, Consumer Vision plans to help retailers in sending personalised offers to their customers. The company is not only looking towards organised retail, but has aggressive plans with regard to kirana stores.

Citing research numbers, Rohit says that even though future growth in retail will be concentrated in the organised sector, the existing customer base of unorganised retail will remain intact, and that constitutes a huge market for Consumer Vision. Considering small shops cannot invest in technology, Rohit intends to provide it for free by involving them in a revenue-sharing model. With the expansive nature of technology, the system can be updated to handle value-added services like airline reservations, in addition to retail.

With such success stories to look up to, Eureka! participants will not be short of encouragement as they embark on the final lap of the race to win top honours at Eureka! 2007. The Entrepreneurship Cell of IIT – Bombay is certainly doing a commendable job in nurturing these fertile minds, and one can optimistically hope of a future when India will no longer be known for cheap labour but also for innovative minds.