An all-girls student team from Chennai has won first place at the TiE (The Indus Entrepreneurs) young entrepreneur competition at Washington DC.

The TiE Young Entrepreneur 2013 Global Business Plan Competition was hosted at George Mason University on June 15 and 16. This is the first time that a team from India has won the competition.

The team of four teenagers from Chennai schools, presented a business plan ‘Prathipad’ – to provide healthcare facility management services to international patients visiting India.

The team consisted of Roshini Ramkumar, class XII, Abacus Montessori School; Meenakshi Ramkumar, class XI, Abacus Montessori School; Shruti Jhaver class XI, Sishya School; and Sruthi Krishnamurthy class XI, P.S. Senior Secondary School. The business plan was to provide end-to-end services to international patients – connecting patients to doctors, booking travel tickets, arranging food, accommodation and language interpreters, and follow-up post-treatment. A part of the profits from this venture will be used to fund the treatment of economically backward patients in India.

“Our aim is to spread awareness about the quality of treatment in India. We believe Chennai can become one of the top destinations for healthcare globally,” says Chennai team leader Roshini Ramkumar.

Though the idea is just at the drawing board stage , the team is keen to implement it after higher studies.

The team was guided by mentors from the TiE Chennai chapter. Sankaran Raghunathan, Dean of National Management School was the group mentor. S. Premkumar, Group CEO, Apollo Hospitals and his team mentored the team on international patient services.

There were school teams from the local TiE chapters of Washington DC, Seattle, Ohio, Atlanta, Detroit, Ahmedabad, UP, Chennai, UK, Dallas, UK North, Vancouver, Delhi, Boston, Hubli, and Austin.