The Startup Expo is all set to give entrepreneurs everything they need to succeed

This announcement is brought to you by Lufthansa Runway to Success.

India is the world’s fourth-largest startup hub with thousands of startups having come into existence over the past few years. Today’s youth are clearly comfortable with saying no to ‘safe career options’, keen to experiment and take risks. Every day, fearless young entrepreneurs all over the country decide to walk down this path, each inspiring another to follow their dream, and in turn contributing to the wave of entrepreneurship sweeping through the country. This energetic and nearly contagious entrepreneurial spirit has resulted in not just a slew of innovations but also in entrepreneurship being recognised as the driving force behind India’s reputation of being home to a rapidly expanding startup ecosystem, which is now also backed the government.

One initiative that’s been driving innovation among startups and rewarding them for their ideas and execution is Lufthansa Runway to Success,with three hugely successful seasons to its credit and a fourth one that’s just around the corner. (Entries close on April 30, 2016.) Competition is fierce – last year, Season 3 of Runway to Success attracted nearly 27,000 entries – but for a reason. The winner gets to take home a grand prize that includes

• A seat at Stanford University’s prestigious Design Thinking Boot Camp
• A Lufthansa Business Class ticket to the US
• A coveted mentorship with TiE – the world's largest network of entrepreneurs

So how can this be my Runway to Success?

Lufthansa Runway to Success is a multi-staged initiative that celebrates the spirit of Indian entrepreneurship. Conceived and developed by Lufthansa in partnership with the business experts at TiE and India’s premier business TV channel ET NOW, the initiative includes:

• Runway to Success Mentorship Camps: Every entrepreneur needs a mentor, which is why Runway to Success is conducting nationwide camps in collaboration with TiE, where celebrated business experts will offer group and individual mentorship sessions to SMEs.
• Runway to Success TV Series: A power-packed programme on ET NOW, which showcases the inspiring stories of today’s business icons and provides India’s most innovative startups and SMEs an opportunity to compete with the best, and take off on the flight to success with the Grand Prize. Initial episodes showcase and interview a business pioneer, who then selects a winner from three of the contestants on that episode. Every winner then competes in a semi-final round, with the top three battling it out in the Grand Finale.
• Startup Expo: The first ever initiative to bring together an ecosystem that can provide startups all the support they need to succeed.

Signing up to be a part of the Startup Expo just takes a couple of minute. This one-day event, organised by Lufthansa and TiE, will bring together startups, investors, corporates, professionals, embassies, students, support organizations, service providers and other stakeholders in the ecosystem looking to explore partnerships with a pool of entrepreneurial talent across various sectors.

The Startup Expo gives startups the opportunity to

• Showcase their ventures
• Attend insightful workshops and expert talks, mentoring sessions
• Interact with the right people in investor zones
• Leverage networking opportunities with experts on site
• Job fair

If all of that (and more!) is what you’re looking for take your venture to the next level and give yourself an amazing learning and networking experience, then you need to head over to the Epicentre in Gurgaon on April 23, 2016, because that’s where it’s all happening.

If you’d like to be part of the showcase, apply here (this year, the focus is on food entrepreneurs).

If you’d simply like to attend, learn, get some mentoring, meeting angel investors and VCs and soak in all the energy, register here.