Infrastructure Idea Hunt Grand 2019 was held on September 12 at Hyatt Regency. Thisis an initiation of Confederation of Nepalese Industries and Idea Studio Nepal. The objective was to encourage Nepalese to come up with innovative solutions to address infrastructure deficit and contribute to the country’s development.Out of numerous ideas sent, Top 10 ideas were shortlisted. Top 10 ideators then went through rigorous rounds of mentoring at Idea Studio Nepal incubation center. They also got an opportunity to pitch their ideas in infront of the members of the Parliament.
Finally 10 ideators pitched their ideas to a panel of seven juries. The jury members were from various backgrounds such as engineering, architecture, business, and business incubation. Ideators presented their ideas in three minutes and two minutes was slotted for questions by the judges. Based on the presentations, ideas, and their answers judges scored them and the Top 3 winners were selected.
Ideators pitched their ideas to the jury members in front of 70 audiences. One of the ideas was of BidhiMandal, it was brick made of plastic and cement, her project focused on reducing plastic waste and also using it to build houses. She brought her prototype for everyone to see. Another idea was a biogas plant presented by Sanjay Rajbhandari. His idea was to bring some reforms in the plant structure and utilise the bio waste that is generated daily in the urban areas. And KishorPoudel came with an idea of collaborating agriculture with engineering. The idea was to plant genetically modified apple trees in areas affected by landslides and soil erosion.
After much deliberation the winners were announced. BidhiMandal with her Project Aawas became the first winner winning a cash prize of Rs 1,50,000. As there was a tie between two ideas thus both the ideas (ShritiAwaleand team for Home Automation, and Ramesh Pathak and team for Traffic Mapp) became runners up wining Rs 1,00,000 cash prize each. All the participants seemed very happy with the results, and were feeling encouraged to work more on their idea and most of them said that this was just a beginning for their project to kick off.
Though there were Top three winners at the event, every other idea was a winner. The opportunity they got was rare and most of them got positive feedback from the audience and judges. SoniyaAdhikari one of the Top 10 ideators shared that three investors at the event approached her. And Poudel could not give time speak to all the people who approached him.
