The program incorporates an innovation boot camp, in which the students are learning the steps of creating a tech startup and what it takes to actually be an entrepreneur - from ideation stage to execution of technology startups.
The participants - selected from among 150 student and alumni applicants of Kathmandu University (KU) - are working on their business ideas, building prototypes, and learning how to market test concepts, following the completion of initial weeklong closed boot camp. They are currently conducting primary market research, user testing their prototype ideas, and learning from the experience of startup founders and engineering leaders through guest lectures.
The MIT GSL program is being conducted in Nepal by the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT), USA in collaboration with KU and Ncell, with the 35 participating students having so far formed 9 teams. Each team is working on its respective startup idea in the lab with round-the-clock support from MIT instructors.
The teams are being taught by four MIT instructors – Sisam Bhandari, Hem Narayan Das Chaudhary, Suresh Rajan, and Jackie Xu – who aim to bring the MIT style of learning to Nepal through hands-on learning, an interdisciplinary curriculum of technology and entrepreneurship, and 24/7 commitment to pursuing one's dream.
Components of the course include web development, user interface design, market research, team development, business model execution, public speaking, and idea pitching to help students develop their startup ideas, build working digital demos, realize the commercial possibilities of technology, and learn what it means to be an entrepreneur.
The GSL curriculum also introduces students to market research, including interviews, observation, feedback collection and meeting with concerned government agencies and private sector organizations, among other experts in order to further upgrade from the ideation stage. During the seven-week long MIT GSL program, students are following Disciplined Entrepreneurship’s 24 steps to a successful startup formulated by Bill Aulet, Managing Director of Martin Trust Center for MIT Entrepreneurship and MIT GSL Co-faculty Director, in order to come up with a minimal viable product on the final Demo Day.
“After enhancing our technical skills, research among potential customers and finding a most feasible solution to the problem we want to address, we are now working on our startup idea,” said Santosh Thapa Magar, a member of a team that is working on a digital business idea related to traffic management.
“This platform is giving me a golden opportunity to learn on ideation process and work further on to start my own startup; I am having a great time learning from instructors from the prestigious MIT,” said Nikhil Shakya, one of the participants. His group is putting their learnings together in an effort to build their targeted solutions and is conducting market research and refining the idea further.
Ishan Pandey, a member of another team, said that his team is working very passionately on their business idea. “We are testing our idea in the market and are getting very positive response. This has fortified our belief in our idea; we see it finding markets in Nepal as well as globally,” he said.
Likewise, guest speakers from relevant fields visit the MIT Global Startup Labs once a week and share their experience and knowledge for running a successful startup.
Students state that sessions with guest speakers have helped them realize the potential of their ideas. “The guest speakers have been very inspiring and motivational. Their sessions have helped us to broaden our mind and knowledge on startups. We are taking their inputs and feedbacks seriously to modify our ideas,” said Palistha Shrestha, another participant.
Like Thapa Magar, Shakya, Pandey and Shrestha, members of all possible teams are actively building on their ideas, developing a business plan and testing them so that they could build and finalize their product prototypes by August 2, when they will pitch their ideas and prototypes to a panel of judges on Demo Day.
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