Opportunity brief
Presented by: bITeSys – The Business & Technology Club of IIM Shillong
"The journey of discovery begins not with finding new lands, but with seeing with new eyes." — Marcel Proust
Overview
bITeSys – The Business & Technology Club of IIM Shillong proudly presents ProdMad 6.0 – ROOTS, the sixth edition of its flagship Product Management Case Competition.
This year, the journey leads to a village deep in the mountains of Northeast India, where the network is slow, the devices are few and the budget is small. The people hold generations of knowledge in their farms, crafts and stories. Participants must design a product, service, device or experience that meaningfully improves education for the village's children. It has to be built within the village's reality, work with limited connectivity, rely on open-source AI, and draw on the knowledge that already lives in the community.
Event Journey
Round 1 – Reading the Land (Quiz)
The journey begins! Take on a rapid-fire online quiz built to test your grasp of product thinking, user empathy, design frameworks and real-world problem solving. From product strategy to creative logic, every question brings you closer to the heart of the village.
Round 2 – Grow the Roots (Case Submission)
You've read the land, now it's time to plant.
Shortlisted teams receive the ROOTS case: design a product, service or experience that improves education for the children of a mountain village with slow internet, few devices and a small budget. Your solution must work offline, run on open-source AI and draw on the village's own knowledge.
Present your idea in a 9-10 slide deck, with designs and wireframes to bring it to life.
The best-rooted ideas will move on to the finale!
Round 3 – Council of Pioneers (Finale)
Your roots have taken hold, now show how they grow.
Finalist teams will present their solutions before a panel of industry experts and alumni who form the Council of Pioneers. Each team will showcase its idea, defend its design choices and answer the jury's questions. The jury will weigh creativity, community understanding, feasibility and sustainability after the pilot ends.
Format: Live online presentation (8-10 minutes + Q&A)
The best idea earns the honor of shaping the village's future.
About ProdMad 6.0
ProdMad 6.0 is more than a competition. It asks participants to build for the people technology usually forgets. It challenges them to design under real constraints, respect local knowledge and show that the best products start from the ground up.
Registration Details
- Open to all B-School, Undergraduate and Postgraduate students.
- Teams can consist of 1-3 members from the same institute.
- A participant can be part of only one team.
- Multiple entries from the same team will lead to disqualification.
- Submissions after deadlines will not be accepted.
- In case of any dispute, the decision of bITeSys, IIM Shillong will be final and binding.
In collaboration with The Product Folks, participants can build tech products through the Vibe Sprint. If you require credits to develop your product using the platform, please reach out to the organizers.