Nagpur: Entrepreneurship Cell, IIT Kharagpur, a non-profit student organization, since its establishment in 2006, with its arduous efforts has taken us one step closer to an Entrepreneurial India. Since E-Cell’s inception, we have incubated over 50 startups and we keep improving and expanding to achieve our goal of ‘ promoting the startups culture in IIT-Kharagpur campus and beyond. Through our events like the Global Entrepreneurship Summit (GES), Empresario and the Entrepreneurship Awareness Drive (EAD), which cover thousands of startup enthusiastic students and foster the spirit of Entrepreneurship among them.
This year the 8th edition of Entrepreneurship Awareness Drive was conducted in Dr. Ambedkar Institute of Management Studies and Research on October 4, 2016. The magnificent event saw a participation of over 600 students coming from various colleges across the city. Through the words of celebrated entrepreneurs and industrialists like ShashikantChoudhary, Talvinder Singh, SuhasBuddhe, Baldev Singh Rawat, the startup enthusiastic students realized that a real entrepreneur is the one who does and not just dreams, he does not wait for the opportunity to knock the door, he builds the door himself. A panel discussion on the topic of TOPIC gave the students an insight of entrepreneurship. The workshop conducted by the NSDL (National Securities Depository Limited) on ‘Working your way through the stock market using a Demat account’.
Entrepreneurship Awareness Drive, conducted by the E-Cell, IIT Kharagpur, comes every year to reinstate the spirit of Entrepreneurship among the college students of India. The Entrepreneurship Awareness Drive, as a pan India initiative which receives tremendous participation, has come a long way. Starting from 10 cities and 15,000 students it has grown exponentially to 23 cities and over 27,000 students in its7th edition held in 2015. And the impact of this very Drive can be understood through the number of college-student-startups that participate in the annual global business model competition, Empresario conducted by E-Cell itself.
Entrepreneurship Awareness Drive, since its humble beginnings in 2009, has witnessed the presence of eminent personalities and the industry leaders of today like- Ms. Kiran Mazumdar Shaw, Founder of Biocon, PhanindraSama, CEO of Redbus.in, Arjun Malhotra, co-founder of HCL Technologies, Mr. IrrfanAlam, Founder, Sammaan Foundation and the contemporary face of Social Entrepreneurship in India and Ms. Shaheen Mistry, Founder, Teach for India Foundation.
Empresario is E-Cell’s very own 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 INR 2.5 crore. The prizes and services for the winners as per the last year are worth 15 lacs INR.Previously, Empresario has been launched in association withTiE Kolkata, Mahindra Spark the Rise and Dell Social Innovation Challenge.
This year, Entrepreneurship Cell IIT Kharagpur are proud to present the new prestigious Empresario 2016 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.
