E-Biz Challenge - startup business plan competition

e-Biz challenge was started by the Institute for Technical Innovation in Zayed University in 2001. It is a very commendable effort and one of the very first business plan competitions of UAE.The sources claim that the competition, "has facilitated the birth of over 60 companies with an aggregate value of over $10.5 billion dollars". I wonder if this figure is for businesses started up through the e-biz challenge UAE or is representing e-business plan competitions strength on general.

The website for the challenge lays out all of the details very comprehensively: www.ebizchallenge.com . Although I am not quiet sure how this competition actually catapults the young entrepreneurs into the real world. I remembered participating in the Deloitte and Touche Business Plan competition. I had noticed two very fundamental ingredients which increased the success probability of the ideas taking birth in the competition. One the team structure for winning ideas required a combination of students and industry professionals. Second the final prize was around $100000 US dollars which was allocated by a panel of judges formulated by venture capitalists and industry gurus.

So lets see if one of the team members is a faculty memeber and the rest all students, I kind of fail to understand how do the visionaries see the business plans transitting from paper to professional world. Just a thought but still we have to start somewhere and it surly is a step in teh right direction. How many of these do we see in Bahrain, Qatar, Saudi, Kuwait or even Pakistan.