The Bhutanese Leading the way.
The annual Business Idea Competition of Bhutan (BICOB) saw 139 entries for the competition where 7 were awarded cash prizes at TechPark.
The special category introduced this year was for the best entry from students in order to raise awareness on entrepreneurship among the high school and junior high school students.
Sonam Choki, Namgay Wangmo and Yonten Tashi Wangchuk from Rangjung Central School bagged cash price of Nu 25,000 for ‘Happy pack lunch delivery services’, an idea to provide door to door services of organic foods especially during lunch time. The motivation behind it is to reduce the loads of students and ease the task of the parents given the high working population in a country.
The founder of Green Vibes Bhutan, Kinley Wangdi won in the startup category and his idea is to offer smoothies and juices with the natural raw taste of fruits and vegetables that are grown locally. He said the availability of raw materials is somewhat easy in a country which he wants to take advantage of to provide healthy alternatives.
One Click Shop won the idea category for the business idea.
An initiative of the Business Innovation and Technology Centre (BITC) received 125 entries for the idea stage category and 14 entries for start-up stage category which is for businesses that are less than a year old. Of the 139 entries, 10 were shortlisted for the startup category and 20 for the idea stage category.
The man behind the idea of BICOB, Tshering Cigay Dorji said that 30 business ideas submitted to the Business Idea Competition of Bhutan since 2012 are under various stages of execution. “We would be working even harder in promoting youth entrepreneurship in the near future as Bhutan prepares to diversify its economy and focus on entrepreneurship in the 12th Five Year Plan that will be launched soon”. “It is only fitting that all Bhutanese realize the need to strengthen our economy as one of the means to strengthen our sovereignty,” he said.
This year Business Idea Competition of Bhutan has been conducted by BITC, Thimphu TechPark in collaboration with Ministry of Labor and Human resource and United Nation Development Programs. The objective is to promote innovation and entrepreneurship in the country for providing gainful employment to the growing youth population, promoting inclusive growth and laying a stronger foundation for the Bhutanese economy.
The prices for the startup stage was Nu 100,000 for the winner, Nu 75,000 for the runners up and Nu 50,000 for the second runners up. For the idea stage, the prices were Nu 50,000 for the winner, Nu 30,000 and Nu 20,000 for the second and third respectively.
The first Business Idea Competition of Bhutan was organized by Bhutan Innovation & Technology Centre (BITC), Thimphu TechPark in 2012 with the support from the World Bank through DITT, MoIC.
