BENGALURU: Uber is dangling before budding entrepreneurs the opportunity of a meeting with its founder Travis Kalanick, who is also the CEO of the world's most valuable startup. The ride-hailing company has tied with the union government for this effort, and is also throwing in a potential meeting with the minister of commerce—presumably Nirmala Sitharaman.
It is not as if everyone who rides an Uber can meet Kalanick or Sitharaman. The deal goes like this: Uber will require riders with business ideas they want to pitch to "industry experts" to register first in 28 cities where it operates services. If the idea is good enough, it gets shortlisted and 'UberPitch' becomes activated on the rider's phone on November 18 and 19.
Minor catch here: the ideas cannot be related to on-demand transport, mobility or logistics.
Uber says in a blog post that the experts will "roll right up at your doorstep" for a 10-minute pitch session which will be followed by 10 minutes of feedback. Those with the three best ideas get to meet Kalanick and Sitharaman.
"3 UberPitch finalists will feature among the top 10 startups that will be flown to the Silicon Valley to meet the leadership team at Uber as well as exchange notes with big-ticket investors," according to Uber.
Does this mean that Kalanick will be in India on November 18 and 19? We don't know yet, but will find out.
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