But Dr Sanjay Chugh, a well-known psychiatrist, and Neeraj Batra, an investment banker-turned-dot com entrepreneur, have come forward with their novel idea of `talent search among the youth', which looks beyond the academics of the children. It will be a website, called Mindzones.com, and first of its kind in the world (as they claim it) with its online and offline community-based activities.

The web site, scheduled to be launched by the end of June this year, aims at identifying, nourishing and promoting exceptional talent in various fields across the world. Says Neeraj Batra, chairman, Mindzone Information Technologies, "The basic objective behind creating Mindzones.com is to recognise and reward young people for their brain activities. Mindzones.com has been designed with the basic philosophy that academic record is not the only method of grading a student. His or her other creative pursuits-be it music, art, dance, sports or creative writing-are also equally important." According to Dr Chugh, "Our social conditioning is such that we give undue weightage to academics. This website aims to identify talent, highlight it, award it and give it the infrastructure to blossom. We want the children to know that there is more to life than just doing well in exams."

To promote young talent, the company has set aside a budget of Rs 3 crore for scholarships and awards during its first full year of operations. However, all scholarship programmes are restricted to the Mindzone Club members only. There are three categories of the club membership-the Silver membership, which is valid for three months only; the Gold membership, which is valid for six months, and finally, the Platinum membership, which is a one-year membership. Depending upon the membership category, memberships fee varies. It is Rs 750 for the Silver membership, Rs 1,000 for the Gold membership and Rs 1,500 for the Platinum membership.

The site also proposes to conduct various on-line and offline talent search and award wining contests. Winners of various talent search contests to be organised by the Mindzone Club will be awarded with a complete set of 20 volumes of Children's Britannica Encyclopaedia, which is worth Rs 10,000. But here too, the offline participation, will be restricted to Mindzone Club members only while some online activities will be available for free participation. However, most of the activities related to its talent search events are reality-based and the participants are shortlisted from the online applications. Membership to the site's different clubs are available online.

Mindzones.com is designed around fun and work through its Creative Club activities. And it has also a Prodigy Club to assist young people in finding and deciding their career path by providing counselling, financial assistance in the form sponsorships and scholarships. The site offers a Britannica Year Book, worth Rs 2,000 free to the first 2,500 registrants.

Mindzones.com has a number of sections like Creative zone, Scholars zone, Prize zone and Ideas zone. The site is also considering to set up a sports academy to support and coach new talent in cricket, tennis, chess and golf.

Interestingly, CitiBank holds a 20 per cent stake in Mindzones.com and this is the first time that CitiBank has invested in any dot com venture at the idea stage itself. Ajay Relan, India Head of CitiBank Private Equity, says, "We feel Mindzones.com is a very powerful and revolutionary concept. It is very highly focussed and also transcends all the geographical boundaries while addressing a very large segment. The merits of the site and, of course, a sound revenue model have driven CitiBank to pick up 20 per cent equity in Mindzones.com at the idea stage itself".