Entrepreneurship Cell, IIT Kharagpur, a non-profit student organization established with the aim of fostering the spirit of entrepreneurship among college students in India, will organise its Entrepreneurship Awareness Drive 2019, Thiruvananthapuram, at B-HUB, Nalanchira, on October 12.
A four-hour event, the EAD would consist of Guest Lectures which surely add to students’ knowledge and provide an insight to what all things happen after they ‘start-up’. Entrepreneurship Cell, IIT Kharagpur is one of the most successful entrepreneurial organizations in the country with over 50 start-ups incubated within 10 years of our inception.
The Entrepreneurship Awareness Drive (EAD), is one of its major flagship events. With its initiation back in 2009, EAD has now grown to cover 22 cities in 22 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.
This year the esteemed presence of Rajan Singh, founder of Concept Owl, Geethu Sivakumar, CEO at PACE HiTech, Anand Laxman – Co-Founder,10XDS, Binu Sankar- Associate Director, Ernst & Young, Anto Patrex – Co-Founder, Lamaara Pvt. Ltd., Christine Pontaq- Venture Capitalist at Pontaq, Robin Alex Panicker -Venture Partner, Unicorn India, Seshadri Nathan Krishnan-Angel Investor and Member at Mumbai Angels Network, is expected to impel the students and make them envision entrepreneurship as a career. The students would get to know as to what path they must choose to live their dream and turn their out-of-the-box ideas into reality.
As many as 30,000 students in 24 cities are the numbers witnessed by the previous edition of EAD 2018. This year, the Entrepreneurship Cell expects bigger numbers. Ram Gopal, CEO of Barclays, Phanindra Sama, CEO of Redbus.in, Arjun Malhotra, co-founder of HCL Technologies and many such distinguished personalities have presided over the event.
The Entrepreneurship Awareness Drive also coincides with the launch of a regular round registrations of our International Business Model Competition: Empresario. Empresario is an Annual Business Model competition where business ideas in all fields ranging from Product and Service to Social, get equal opportunity to win the prize and incubation opportunities to the tune of Rs 2.5 crore. The prizes and services for the winners as per the last year are worth Rs 35 lakh.
This year, Entrepreneurship Cell IIT Kharagpur will present Empresario 2019 in association with International Business Model Competition (IBMC). The best entries will get an opportunity to participate directly in the quarter-final rounds of IBMC 2019, which will be conducted abroad.
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. 158 colleges participated in EAD 2018, with 24 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 the students. More details here and here.
