CIMA Launch Pad: Bigger and better

CIMA Launch Pad is an initiative taken by the CIMA Students’ Society. The event was organised bigger and better for the third consecutive year. It has grown to be a pivotal platform for young entrepreneurs to meet fruition in the world of business startups. 

Having completed the initial stage of the three-minute pitch, the workshops and the mentorship programs which took the form of an incubation for these shortlisted startups were followed by a mock investor review, and the Grand Finale was held on 26 November at the Trace Expert City – Maradana.

The success of the CIMA Launch Pad brand as a platform for business startups are combination of the brands that continue to partner with them over the years and the new brands that forge partnerships along this journey of becoming the most robust incubation program for business startups in Sri Lanka. 

This year the CIMA Launch Pad was endorsed by MAS Holdings, partnering up with the event for the second consecutive year as the Strategic Partner, PwC Sri Lanka as the knowledge partner for the third consecutive year by extending their resources to conduct workshops and most importantly by setting up the platform for two of the finalists to attend the SLUSH convention held at Helsinki, Finland. 

Also, renewing its second consecutive year as the industry partner, SLASSCOM the industry partner together with Start-Up Sri Lanka the eco-system partner. The Print Media Partner for Launch Pad was Wijeya Newspapers while the Radio Partner and the Digital Media Partner was Fox FM and Read Me respectively, providing significant publicity and exposure to the project.

In addition to the entire experience, the winning team received the privilege of working with Neilson in order to conduct a market research on their area of business (free of charge), and a complete overhaul of their branding and online marketing and communication strategy done by Response Marketing as a startup bundle. Further, all four finalists received an opportunity to be eligible for a start-up loan offered by HNB with no collateral, another first time in Sri Lanka benefit offered to budding entrepreneurs through Launch Pad.

The four finalists presented their startup ideas to a panel of top notch corporate personalities. The eminent panel of judges were Ruwindhu Peiris, the Managing Director of Stax Inc, Ranil Pathirana, the Chief Technical Officer at MAS holdings and Murtaza Jafferjee, the CEO of J B Securities. The first team pitching for the day was team Novitas presenting a product named MagD, an organic fertiliser which has the ability to absorb water and retain water, which enables their target consumers avoid watering plants frequently. 

Second up was team Octave presenting an app named NextBus. The app was developed for individuals commuting in buses frequently where they are able to receive information relating to the arrival time of buses as well as calculate the estimated time taken to travel to the desired location by the bus by a simple click of a button. 

Soon after their demonstration, team SAS Ninja labs got onto the stage to reveal their product, which was a wearable glass that could detect and monitor the level of drowsiness of the user, targeted for drivers, the device is able to warn and take preventive measures such as notifying and sending warnings to the user to reduce the possibility of a fatal accident occurring. 

The final pitch for the day was team wildcards. The team presented a smart wearable glass, named as SpecBuddy. The amazing device was built for the visually impaired and has the capability to detect and recognise currency notes, text, any individuals’ physical features and the environment in front of the user. The teams plan to miniaturise the device and scale globally impressed the judges that evening, which subsequently crowned them as the winners of the day.

Followed up by the announcement of the winning team and the customary presentation of awards and startup bundles and recognising partner and mentor contributions, the networking session was initiated with the investors present getting a chance to interact with the finalists as well as few invited startups that gained an opportunity to exhibit their product and idea.

CIMA Launch Pad 2016 introduced many changes this year by the organising committee in order to improve the quality of the event. The objective was always to provide invaluable exposure for the teams participating. The additions such as having a prototype or a blueprint of the product or the service by the teams attracted real entrepreneurs. To evaluate these prototypes the organisers put together a panel of technical gurus (tech hack team) who gave insights to the teams on how to further improve their prototype and valuable advice to the teams.

CIMA Launch Pad has been growing tremendously over the years and will continue to do the same in the years to come.