Nagpur: Entrepreneurship Cell, IIT Kharagpur is organizing Entrepreneurship Awareness Drive 2016 in the city on October 4. The 3-hour event will be held at Dr. Ambedkar Institute of Management Studies and Research and would consist of guest lectures , panel discussion along with a workshop to be conducted by the NSDL (National Securities Depository Limited), which surely add to students’ knowledge and provide an insight to what all things happen after they ‘start-up’.
27,000 students, 23 cities, these are numbers witnessed by the previous edition of EAD 2015, and as we look forward to even bigger numbers. Kiran Mazumdar Shaw, Founder of Biocon, Phanindra Sama, CEO of Redbus.in, Arjun Malhotra, co-founder of HCL Technologies, Irfan Alam, Founder, Sammaan Foundation and the contemporary face of Social Entrepreneurship in India and Shaheen Mistry, Founder, Teach for India Foundation are some well-known personalities who have shared their tale of success through the stage of EAD. EAD has come a long way since its inception 7 years ago and has seen the number of cities grow from 10 to 23. With the Prime Minister himself showing an interest towards the development of startups in India, the need of the hour is to motivate India’s youth towards an entrepreneurial India.
As this drive continues to reach more students and entrepreneurs, we move one step closer to achieving Vision 2020, as outlined by former President of India Dr. APJ Abdul Kalam. The Entrepreneurship Awareness Drive also coincides with the launch of our International Business Model Competition: Empresario. Empresario is our Annual Business Model competition where business ideas in all fields ranging from Product and Service, Product Design to Social get equal opportunity to win the prize and incubation money to the tune of Rs 2.5 crore. The prizes and services for the winners as per the last year are worth Rs 15 lakh.
Previously, Empresario had been launched in association with TiE Kolkata, Mahindra Spark the Rise and Dell Social Innovation Challenge. This year, Entrepreneurship Cell IIT Kharagpur are proud to present the new prestigious Empresario 2015 in association with International Business Model Competition (IBMC). The best entries in all categories will get an opportunity to participate directly in the semi-final rounds of IBMC 2016, which will be conducted abroad. The Impact- About 25% of the entries in our Business Model Competition- Empresario were from participants of EAD, which underlines the impact of this unique initiative towards motivating young minds towards entrepreneurial thought and action. 108 colleges participated in EAD 2014, with 23 colleges associating with us to conduct the EAD in their respective campus. During the drive, many colleges expressed their interest in setting up entrepreneurship promoting bodies for the benefit of their students.
Activities have been initiated to set up EDCs or E-Cells in such colleges with Entrepreneurship Cell, IIT Kharagpur as their mentor. The campus ambassadors appointed from each associate college have also received due recognition from Entrepreneurship Cell, IIT Kharagpur. Thus, a healthy network has been developed between a large number of colleges and Entrepreneurship Cell, IIT Kharagpur, which is important for spreading awareness about entrepreneurship across the entire country.
For more details, log on to www.ead.ecell-iitkgp.org or www.ecell-iitkgp.org. To get to our Facebook Page, go to www.facebook.com/ecell.iitkgp.
Entrepreneurship Cell, IIT Kharagpur is a non-profit student organization established with the aim of fostering the spirit of entrepreneurship among college students in India. We are one of the most successful entrepreneurial organizations in the country with over 50 start-ups incubated within 8 years of our inception. We as an organization, are committed towards promoting entrepreneurship through guest lectures and workshops, conducted through our major initiatives like the Entrepreneurship Awareness Drive and the Global Entrepreneurship Summit. The Entrepreneurship Awareness Drive (EAD) is one of our major flagship events. With its initiation back in 2009, EAD has now grown to cover 23 cities in 23 days. You learn when you see, with this basic idea, EAD consists of a series of guest lectures and workshops, wherein students get to learn from the ‘achievers’ of the society. For the budding entrepreneurs, the EAD plays the role of platform where they get a chance to grow their network by interacting with the guests, who happen to be the angel investors and venture capitalists. This year the esteemed presence of Shashikant Choudhary (CEO, Nagpur Angels. President TiE Nagpur), Suhas Buddhe (Managing Director, Biocare India Pvt. Ltd),. Talvinder Singh (Product Head, OYO Rooms) and other speakers, will surely impel the students and make them envision entrepreneurship as a career.
