Prateek Saxena, winner of the young immigrant entrepreneur business idea: “I’m going in the right direction”

At Saturday’s Business Unplugged Meets Creativity event the ME4Change pitching competition was held. Young entrepreneurs with an immigrant background were able to send their own sales pitch to the competition in advance, of which the six best were chosen as finalists.

The ideas presented on stage were diverse: non-alcoholic beer, multilingual mental-health consultation, a lending service and handmade traditional jewellery. One of the boldest ideas was a learning method aimed at organizations’ staff that took advantage of juggling.

The winner was Prateek Saxena and his frisbee golf brand Hyzerflip, which uses Indian networks to reinforce his brand and offer competitive products in Finland. In the jury’s opinion, all the finalists’ ideas had a lot of good sides, but Prateek’s idea showed mastery of a complete package.

“His pitch had a suitable mix of storytelling, excitement and researched facts; I think it was a pretty ready-to-go package and strategy for entering the market,” says Aicha Manai, who represented Suomen Yrittäjät on the jury.

The other jury members were start-up entrepreneur and business angel Pia Erkinheimo, Ozan Yanar MP, and Suldaan Said Ahmed, a member of the business affairs sub-committee of the Board of the City of Helsinki.

The competition winner Prateek was delighted to receive recognition for his idea. He also receives a grant of €500 to help him make progress with his idea.

“Here I tested whether my idea would also be liked by people outside a readily excited audience,” Prateek says.

“The win is proof that I’m going in the right direction and that motivates me to work even harder.”

Hanna Vaittinen

toimitus (at)  yrittajat.fi