YES ASPIRE to Innovate: Giving wings to the leaders of tomorrow

India has a robust startup ecosystem, filled with budding entrepreneurs ready to take on the world. Amongst them are students who fearlessly and ambitiously stake their claim to a piece of the startup ecosystem pie.

Scholarships galore

India’s fifth-largest private sector bank, YES BANK, has awarded 30 such students, with the YES ASPIRE to Innovate scholarship. Launched in 2015, the programme is aimed at grooming future leaders and entrepreneurs, who are likely to lead India into the next wave of socio-economic growth. This thought leadership initiative rewards 30 exceptional scholars every year for their entrepreneurial vision, leadership qualities, and holistic academic performance.

The third edition saw a very enthusiastic response with as many as 1,871 registrations. Open to all first-year students, the programme offers a prize of Rs 200,000, a pre-placement interview opportunity and a year-long mentorship by the Yes Bank senior leadership to each of the 30 scholars chosen from 15 select B-schools across the country.

Speaking about the programme, Mr. Rana Kapoor, Managing Director and CEO of YES BANK said, “At YES BANK, it is our constant endeavour to interact with the youth and channelize their entrepreneurial spirit in the right direction. I believe today’s young and aspiring leaders are creating a tectonic shift in the entrepreneurship ecosystem in India through Design Thinking, Innovation and Creativity. In line with YES BANK’s ethos of Professional Entrepreneurship, the YES ASPIRE scholarships aim to nurture the dreams and aspirations of India’s budding business minds and be the wind beneath their wings.”

Grand Finale

The Grand Finale of YES ASPIRE hosted on March 24 for felicitating these 30 scholars also witnessed a Fireside chat, aptly titled, “At the Crossroads: Blue Chip Job vs. Bootstrapped Startup” in order to give these aspiring young minds a perspective of working in a corporate organization as against a startup. Abhay Pandey, MD, Sequoia Capital, Anant Goenka, Executive Director, The Indian Express Group and Prabir Jha, Global Chief People Officer, Cipla shared their insights with these young budding entrepreneurs.

The winners

The students were shortlisted after four rounds of rigorous evaluations on the basis of their academic scores and other parameters.

Here are the winners:

Nilambari Rathi - IIM Ahmedabad

Udit Ahuja - IIM Ahmedabad

Mantri Megha Rameshchandra - IIM Bangalore

Aayush Singhal - IIM Bangalore

Rahul Kumar - IIM Calcutta

Bhawna Setia - IIM Calcutta

Beena Nareshbhai Patel - IIM Udaipur

Rishabh Nagaich - IIM Udaipur

Sankeerth Bondugula - IIM Shillong

Raghav Dhanuka - IIM Shillong

Lal Chand Poonia - IIM Indore

Shruti Aran - IIM Indore

Eeti Jain - IIM Rohtak

Akshat Modi - IIM Rohtak

Prathmesh Kalubarme - IIM Kozhikode

Devesh Prasad Mishra - IIM Kozhikode

Preetham Krishna Mittapalli - IIM Lucknow

Snehal Chauhan - IIM Lucknow

Rajput Gopalsinh Vaghsinh - IRMA

Pooja Mohankumar Khatri - IRMA

Nakul Birla - SCMHRD

Varsha Bhardwaj - SCMHRD

Bharadwaj Kanamarlapudi - NMIMS

Pooja Ghosh Dastidar - NMIMS

Pulkit Aggarwal - XLRI

Harshit Kumar Agarwal - XLRI

Vidur Thakral - FMS

Neha Singhal - FMS

Aabha Kapoor - NITIE

Ritwiz Shukla - NITIE