Idea Studio Nepal (ISN) with the National Union of Eritrean Youth and Students (NUEYS) are working together to launch Idea Studio model in Eritrea. Rupesh Krishna Shrestha, Director and Co-Founder of Idea Studio Nepal visited Eritrea in the beginning of 2019 to present the Idea Studio model to the government officials of Eritrea and get their buy in into the model. The second trip was to run a five days workshop on the Idea Studio curriculum. In this regard a team from NUEYS and the government officials of Eritrea visited ISN for a week to learn its operations. The aim was to provide experience and insight of ISN concept to the Eritrea team. The main objective of the visit was to understand the initiation, operationalization and sustainability of the ISN and provide an insight into the management and resources requirement to launch Idea Studio Eritrea.   The outcome of the visit will guide NUEYS to operationalize Idea Studio Eritrea, to engage youth and nurture and strengthen their creativity. Further, it will have a significant impact in their creative thinking, exploring livelihood opportunities, strengthening entrepreneurship and informed engagement in Eritrea’s socio-economic development by engaging and mobilizing youth.

Idea Studio Season 4 सोचदेखी उध्योगसम्म officially commenced on August 18, 2019 through a press meet in the presence of different media. With new collaboration with WWF Nepal as the Eco Impact Partner there is an additional winner category under the title Greenovation. Seven new PSAs was launched introducing four new goodwill ambassadors — Captain Vijaya Lama, Anupamai Kunjeli- CEO of Mega Bank Nepal Limited, Prakash Saput – Singer and Malvika Subba- Media Personality followed by success stories PSA of former ideators.   The idea calling application opened nationwide from the press meet with promotions via radio channels, national television, digital and print media. More than 400 applications applied from 46 districts of Nepal. Idea Studio Nepal board, business experts, banking partners, and collaboration partner screened the pool of submitted ideas and shortlisted 82 ideas for live audition. The selected applicants pitched their ideas to the panel of judges (experts from different sectors) at Idea Studio Nepal office. Evaluating the audition and scoring and after much deliberation judges selected Top 31 ideators for a month long incubation.   The incubation was intensive programme that was held in November. The experiential lab- based learning focused on developing entrepreneurial skills and an entrepreneurial mindset. The ideators were engaged in a rigorous 10 days boot camp where design thinking activities and interaction sessions with experts from different fields such as legal compliance, taxation and audit, leadership, IT, trade and promotion, marketing among others. Through the boot camp the ideators enhanced their business knowledge and learned research, analytical and decision-making skills. During the incubation month the ideators also participated in a 3-day workshop by Building University Capacity to Support Business Incubation in Nepal (BUCSBIN). This is a Finnish model with focus on experiential learning in areas such as creative problem solving, concept development, internationality and entrepreneurial thinking. One to one mentorship was also conducted for the ideators to address and enhance their ideas and business plans. Mentorship and guidance being a crucial part in an entrepreneurial journey the mentorship session continues even after incubation. Idea Studio Nepal believes in fostering the entrepreneurial ecosystem, for this continuous support will be provided to all the ideators. The door is always open to ideators who seek help.  

Collaboration is the key to create an entrepreneurial ecosystem. Every stakeholder through this ecosystem will foster in Nepal. One of such collaborations is between Idea Studio Nepal and National Innovation Centre (Rastriya Aviskar Kendra). The aim is to create unique models to retain, nurture, and promote Nepal’s efficient human capital. This is designed to leverage their considerable intellect, creativity, and talent, and to foster the country’s social and economic growth. This partnership will also develop mutual cooperation in knowledge generating research activities and business incubation services and training related to entrepreneurship and innovation. On the basis of this, National Innovation Center will recommend three ideas that will get direct entry to Idea Studio Season 5. The ideas will be selected after a meticulous process.  

Idea Studio Nepal (ISN) and Mega Bank Nepal Limited (MBNL) have collaborated for two years with an agreement from September 22, 2019 to September 21, 2021. This collaboration is to promote women entrepreneurs and SMEs through access to entrepreneurial skills, knowledge, and finance.   The intent of this partnership is to use the knowledge, resources and networks of both organizations efficiently and effectively to encourage, promote and establish innovation and sustainable business in Nepal in order to contribute to sustainable development in the country. This will facilitate to foster entrepreneurship ecosystem among the stakeholders, especially women, collaborate in creating curriculum and research in the field of entrepreneurship in Nepal. As a Banking Brand Champion MBNL will provide loan to the women entrepreneurs with or without collateral at subsidized interest rate, financial literacy, support knowledge creation and research in the field of banking and women in business among others.

College Idea Hunt 2019 was introduced to enable the college students towards entrepreneurship. College Idea Hunt is a preliminary round event of the grand event I Have an Idea 2019. Both the events are preliminary rounds of Idea Studio Season 4. The prep began with college activation through presentation in more than 100 colleges located in Kathmandu Valley. The details included an introduction of program, the process, benefits, eligibility, evaluation criteria, prizes, and the submission of ideas (contact information) et cetera. This time green entrepreneurship was introduced to the students and were encouraged to submit ideas related to that. More than 1,800 students of varied faculties were reached.     More than 100 ideas were submitted and shortlisting was in two phases. Sixty ideas were shortlisted first. They submitted two minutes videos as part of shortlisting. Total 10 ideas were selected for the I Have An Idea 2019 event. The ideas ranged from green business to social enterprise to service to technology. Experts groomed these Top 10 ideas for the final event with five days incubation at Idea Studio Nepal office.     On September 16, 2019 I have an Idea event was held at Rastriya Sabha Griha. More than 300 audiences witnessed the event along with colleges, media and some known personalities. Dr. Ram Kantha Makaju Shrestha MD, Vice Chancellor Kathmandu University chaired the Event. Prof. Dr Bhagawan Koirala, Shrinkhala Khatiwada-Miss Nepal World 2018, and Sujeet Regmi- Co-founder of Sajilo Marmat Sewa were the guest speakers at the event. Sajilo Marmat Sewa was one of the winners of College Idea Hunt 2016. The Top ideas pithed their ideas in front of a panel of judges— Sanjib Subba, CEO National Banking Institute, Santosh Mani Nepal, Senior Director Policy and Governance, WWF Nepal, Anupama Khunjeli, CEO Mega Bank Nepal Ltd., and Kawish Bhakta Shrestha, Co-founder Sajilo Marmat Sewa. After much deliberation Top 3 winners (Joseph Shreshtha (Reverse Vending Machine: फोहोर दिनुस मोहोरलिनुस, सव्य बनौ बनाऊ), Anshu Pradhan (Sister’s Enterprises), and Rupesh Duwal (Tetra Pak Recycling) were selected and awarded with NRs 1,00,000 each. Along with the award money, Top 3 winners got direct entry in the month-long incubation, an opportunity to pitch their ideas in the national television show Idea Studio Season 4 and unconditional support of Idea Studio Nepal.  

Music Securities is a registered financial services agency of Japan and it launched an impact investment platform called Securite in 2008. The reason was to integrate several services and categories into one web based platform that would support to manage account and customer information in one system. This was extended business opportunities for wide range of industries and customers. It generates funds for businesses of different sectors from music, restaurants, agriculture, IT, sports, energy, manufacturing et cetera.   Idea Studio Nepal (ISN) on the other hand is working towards establishing entrepreneurship ecosystem in Nepal since 2014. One of the essential components for this is financial support to entrepreneurs. In this endeavour Music Securities and ISN collaborated to originate fund for enterprises on July 17, 2019. This is another milestone for ISN.   In 2018 ISN had announced launch of Idea Impact Fund and in 2019 it got closer to fulfilling its commitment. This year the deserving enterprises will receive benefits due to this collaboration.

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.

UNICEF Eritrea and the National Union of Eritrean Youth and Students (NUEYS) recently concluded a 5-day workshop on building entrepreneurship skills among youth in the capital Asmara. Forty-seven youth from different Zobas, including innovators from emerging start-ups, worked under the guidance of Professor Rupesh K. Shrestha from Kathmandu University, Nepal. They created innovative business plans which included solar powered digital libraries, energy saving cooking-stoves, eco-friendly construction materials, education software and access for the hearing impaired/deaf, and low-cost energy-saving laptops. Read Full Story Here

आइडिया स्टुडियो नेपाल र मेलम्ची नगरपालिकाबिच आइडिया स्टुडियो नेपालको सहकार्यमा मेलम्ची नगरपालिकाभित्र रहेका घरेलु कृषिक्षेत्रलाई आधुनिकीकरण गरी उत्पादित बस्तुको बजार प्रबद्र्घन गर्दै व्यबसायिक कृषी कर्जा लगानी गर्ने बिषयमा त्रिपक्षिय सम्झौता भएको छ । Read Full Story Here