It is a warm Saturday spring afternoon, and the air is almost electric at Delhi’s Thyagaraj stadium as queues form outside the gates. The excitement isn’t for a sports event. Those who’ve turned up at the stadium on March 5 are here for a unique expo-style exhibition. Inside is an army of students from Delhi’s government schools. They are here to pitch their ideas to investors and venture capitalists and seek both capital and mentorship. The mega event — the Business Blaster expo — is the next step of Delhi government’s entrepreneurship mindset curriculum, launched in September 2021 wherein some 300,000 students received Rs 2,000 each as seed money to build on their proposed business ideas. Now 775 of those students, split in 126 teams, have made it to the expo in the hope of taking their entrepreneurial dreams to the next level. In a separate meeting room, investors sit down with team leaders of projects they are interested in, working out deals. At the end of the day, 200 Letters of Intent are signed. But first, the investors get a demo on the business ideas. At the end of the hall, a siren goes off from time to time. Turns out the sound is emerging from a stall selling security alarms for home. A few metres away, at Stall No 68, visitors sample a healthy powder made from date seeds but which tastes like coffee. Among them is marketing professional Ritesh Jain, whose mother saw the project on the Business Blasters TV show and was intrigued by the concept. “It seems interesting and I am keen on seeing what their business plan and total addressable market is,” says Jain.
