If you had to build a hypothetical, fast-moving, AI-backed startup to shake up a traditional industry ruled by incumbents, which one would you target, and how would you do it?
That’s the challenge we’re throwing to smart, ambitious college students across India.
I’m super excited and thrilled to launch the second edition of The Ken's Case Competition, in partnership with Zerodha.
Last year’s debut was built on a format that was unique and powerful. Our intention was to radically reimagine the tired, old, formulaic case-study format to simulate the real world, with all its choices, complexities, and challenges. And so, in 2024, at the peak of India’s 10-minute delivery boom, we challenged India’s top MBA students to pick a real-world quick-commerce company and craft a winning strategy. The premise? We gave all teams a notional $1 billion in capital to spend as they saw fit.
Teams from hundreds of B-schools went head-to-head over a three-month period in a fiercely contested, innovative battle for the winning prize of Rs 10 lakh—making it the case competition with the biggest prize in India.
This year, we’re taking it up a notch.
In most case competitions, students step into the shoes of a company and design a theoretical strategy to tackle a business problem.
Our competition inverts this.
The Ken’s next case-study challenge casts students as disruptors.
They’ll analyse incumbents across sectors, uncover blind spots, design attack strategies, and eventually build AI-powered prototypes that show how they’d turn opportunities into products.
Thus, we’re calling this a case-build competition—a first-of-its-kind, truly pioneering format.
We’re doing this because the world has changed. It’s time for students to do much more than “study” stiff and constructed cases.
Instead, it’s time for them to build out their true ambitions and ideas. Against incumbents in the real world.
Because AI is forcing a reset of everything we knew about innovation and disruption.
In the age of AI, the biggest opportunities are in identifying where legacy incumbents fall short. They’re holding onto customers whose needs have changed but don’t yet realize it.
If AI can make anyone a builder, why can’t students be builders too?
The winner of The Ken’s Case Competition 2025 will be awarded a cash prize of Rs 10 lakh.
We envision this to be the gold standard of business and technology competitions in India. Open to all college students across the country, it’ll take place over three months, lasting until the end of 2025. In each round, participants will be pushed to go deeper into the sector of their choice—they’ll evaluate what incumbents are doing, conduct market research, sharpen their approach, and eventually craft and build solutions, using AI tools to bring them to life.
And just like last year, we’ll involve The Ken’s community of subscribers by publishing the best and most innovative solutions and feedback we receive.
Link to case in comments.