Prof CK Prahalad inaugurates TVS chair of Entrepreneurship at Great Lakes Institute of Management

The chair was set up by TVS Capital Funds, which is part of the TVS group. Initially, Rs 1.2 crore has been earmarked by TVS Capital Funds, founded by Mr Gopal Srinivasan. According to Mr Srinivasan, The funds are primarily for research and targeted at role model entrepreneurs.According to the information shared by Great lakes, The entrepreneurship chair is to drive focused research on formulation of strategies. It will help, enable and further strengthen the ecosystem for entrepreneurship in India.

Speaking on the occasion, C K Prahalad said, that India must learn to celebrate honest wealth creation and make it a social, legitimate activity. He added, There is no amount of subsidies, philanthropy is a substitute to entrepreneurship, They are important because they have aspirations that lie outside the resource space. Therefore, they innovate within constraints. Entrepreneurs dont benchmark best practices, but create the best practices, he noted.Launching the initiative, Mr Gopal Srinivasan said, it was his late father T S Srinivasan who bought over 250 acres in Padi and over 300 acres at Hosur, with a vision to create an automotive complex. That was at a time when car production was barely 100 cars a month.

He was able to think of creating 60,000 mopeds capacity. Mr Srinivasan noted that fostering and unleashing entrepreneurship is vital. Therefore, the research of entrepreneurship ecosystem is imperative to gauge the economics of entrepreneurship. Prof Prahalad, is the Paul and Ruth McCracken Distinguished University professor of corporate strategy at the University of Michigan Ross School of Business and has recently earned the first spot on Suntop Medias 2007 Thinkers 50 list.