ICICI Lombard and IIT Bombay recently concluded their annual business competition, IL Igniting Minds 2025. This event, now in its third season, brings together students from across India to solve important business challenges. The final presentations and the award ceremony took place at the ICICI Lombard Office in Mumbai .
The competition aims to give young and talented students a platform to develop new ideas for real-world business problems. This year, the main challenge for students was "Unlocking SME Insurance Growth in India." SME stands for Small and Medium Enterprises, which are small and medium-sized businesses. Many of these businesses in India do not have proper insurance cover.
Solving Real Business Problems
For the IL Igniting Minds competition, students were asked to think of new ways to help small and medium businesses get insurance easily and effectively. They had to focus on several key areas:
- New Insurance Plans: How to create insurance products that truly fit the needs of small businesses.
- Digital Tools: Using technology to make buying and managing insurance simpler, faster, and more convenient for these businesses.
- Reaching Businesses: Finding better strategies to inform small businesses about insurance and help them buy the right policies.
The overall goal was to make insurance easy to understand, useful, and affordable for these businesses. This helps protect them from various risks and supports their steady growth in the economy.
High Participation and Winners
This season of IL Igniting Minds saw a large number of participants. More than 4,000 students from over 500 colleges across India registered for the challenge. This high participation shows the strong interest students have in solving real business issues and contributing to the economy.
The final round featured talented teams presenting their innovative ideas to top managers from ICICI Lombard. The winning team was from IIT Delhi . The team from IIM Ranchi came second, earning the first runner-up spot.
| Competition Highlight | Details |
| Total Registrations (2025) | Over 4,000 students |
| Total Institutes (2025) | Over 500 |
| Winning Team | IIT Delhi |
| First Runner-up | IIM Ranchi |
Company's View and Student Impact
Sheena Kapoor , who is the Head of Marketing, Corporate Communications, and CSR at ICICI Lombard, spoke about the competition. She said that the third season of IL Igniting Minds was very encouraging. She noted that the students explained their ideas about real business problems to the company's top managers with great clarity and understanding.
Ms. Kapoor also added that such events show that the future of India is safe in the hands of capable and responsible young people. This competition helps students gain real-life experience and prepares them to become future leaders in the business world.
Looking back, previous IL Igniting Minds competitions were organized with leading institutes like IIM Calcutta, IIM Lucknow, and NMIMS. These past events included more than 4,500 students from over 700 campuses , encouraging many students to come up with new and creative business ideas.
