Entrepreneurship Week India Round Up

In its second year, E Week is an initiative of NEN, and co-hosted with over 270 NEN member institutes, TiE, IVCA Indian Angel Network and many other organizations. During E Week, over 2,00,000 students are running and participating in more than 2,500 activities across 30 cities of India. MBAUniverse.com, the Official Management Portal of E Week, presents the highlights of the week.

E WEEK YATRA by Shubha Narayanan:
Over-Achievers Cell
February 9, Bangalore, St Josephs College of Arts and Science, 9:30 am
WHAT? I almost shout, while my eyes pop out.
Jason Jacob, E Cell President of St Joseph College for Arts and Science, smiles as he repeats, 800-plus events in seven days.
Uh..but how? I stammer.
I expected the answer to be dramatic, but it was so simple that I ended up feeling stupid.

The e-cell has, of course, run multiple events on their own campus. But Mission Jagruthi is their trump card. 12 students, in teams of two, targeted 12 non-NEN institutes in Bangalore to promote entrepreneurship. In each, they organized 10 events for students in at least 10 classes in each college. Its a pyramid-marketing approach that companies like Amway have used to great effect. It worked for St. Josephs as well.

As a result of Mission Jagruthis efforts, over 5,000 non-NEN, non-St. Josephs students gulped a decent dose of entrepreneurship and then joined in the E Week pledge.

The events the Mission Jagruthi team ran at the institutes included a business plan competition; quizzes and branding exercises; billboard design competitions; case study discussions; idea generation, product pricing, product design exercises; and debates. Each of these events was completed within one hour.

Ultimately, the response was very enthusiastic, shares Jason. In fact, in one of the testimonials, a student wrote: I wish our teachers made learning as interesting as you all did.

St Josephs E Cell is only three months old, but each E Cell member is driven by the spirit of entrepreneurship. As Madhuri, another E Cell member admits, the beginning of Mission Jagruthi wasnt easy. We were chased out of seven colleges, as the institutes were not open to it. In some of the evening colleges, we were bullied by the students. But once we got down to business, they listened. We didnt give up, and now I feel that we have made a difference in the institutes we worked with, she says.

Some of the institutes visited by these students include Cathedral College, Ambedkar Evening College, St Joseph Evening College, St Joseph PUC College, Reva Institute of Technology, MLA College, National College, BHS College and Venkateshwara College.
Hey, whats cooking? Mount Carmel College
February 9, Bangalore, Mount Carmel College, 12:00 noon

I just made the big mistake of visiting Mount Carmel College with a growling stomach. That too to peep into an event titled Cooking with Constraints. It is a contest where participants are given limited stock of limited ingredients to prepare a lunch box within a given time. The only unconstrained item seems to be cooking gas!

I have been spending the last hour watching the three teams make the best out of a pumpkin. The organizers have been generous enough to provide carrots, beans, bananas, nuts, flour and milk too, but the challenge clearly lies in the pumpkin.

Strange concoctions are emerging. A wonton here, a stuffed paratha there, some continental salad and lots of dessert are almost ready.

As I greedily await my turn to nibble some of the creations, I cant help but wonder how a simple game like this teaches a valuable lesson in entrepreneurship. But after thinking, I realize that entrepreneurs struggle with limited ingredients all the time: never enough people, never enough time, never enough money. The only things plentiful for entrepreneurs are passion and imagination.

Seems that adding those spices to a pumpkin can be good practice.
Fun rules at CIMAT mela
February 7, Coimbatore, Coimbatore Institute of Management and Technology
12:30 pm

I just left Coimbatore Institute of Management and Technology, two bucks richer; Sujith, our photographer, now owns a plastic frog; and Mano, our NEN consultant in Coimbatore, strongly suspects that I am a compulsive gambler.

I plead guilty, for the E-Week mela on at the campus was irresistible. For Rs 2, I could have doubled my money, filled my chocoholic tummy, and even won myself a Walkman. All this, by hitting the ball at the target, throwing the ring to the right spot, or saving a helicopter from crashing in a video game.

Sigh! Today isnt my lucky day. After several efforts (and loss of ten bucks) I finally managed to tumble a structure made of tumblers and earned enough to break even.

Meanwhile Sujith was busy clicking and lending me money, and Mano did the rounds of a rather extensive exhibition. The students had showcased their myriad talents in forms of art, craft, mehndi and glasswork. Some of them, especially the Tanjore paintings were done so beautifully, that I wasnt a bit surprised when the artist Sathya Pushpa told me that they cost Rs 4,000 upwards.
The visit was so much fun that Mano had to literally drag me out of campus. Now we are off to PSG College of Technology. The excitement, Mano assures me, has just begun!

Code Red
February 7, Coimbatore, PSG College of Technology, 4:00 pm
Remember the Give Me Red Eveready battery ad that shook us with its raw energy over a decade ago? That was the first thought I had when I entered the PSG campus.
If you think it is because the campus was done in red, well, you are only partly correct. It was the electrifying energy that ruled over the E Cell room that actually brought Eveready to mind. The 30 core members are literally camping in the E Cell command center during E Week, visiting their hostel rooms only to catch snatches of sleep at midnight.

They greet me with a loud awww. You should have come on Monday, there was a riot here during the treasure hunt, Janardhan, Secretary of PSG E Cell tells me. 300 people registered for the event, and there were several more waiting at the gate pleading to join in.

The documentary film festival on the theme Live the Dream has been a huge hit too, with PSG receiving 16 entries across colleges for the event. We send nearly 600 SMSes a day, letting students know about the E Week events, adds Rahul Sakhamuri, an active blogger who has been posting hour-by-hour updates on his blog.

For these students, E Week is not limited to a seven-day affair. PSGs E Cell is one of the most active clubs in the campus, organizing events and seminars throughout the year. Naturally, sponsorships poured in from organizations like Canara Bank, National Research Development Corporation, IMS and Salzer Switches, who were only too happy to associate themselves with these E Week evangelists.

With a unique two-day women entrepreneurs conclave due to start on Friday, the excitement is far from over.

NEN, a not-for-profit initiative of the Wadhwani Foundation, works to inspire, educate and support the younger generation of entrepreneurs. Currently NEN is working with more than 295 top-tier academic institutes, reaching over 3 lakh young people across 30 cities of India.

Indias leading management portal MBAUniverse.com is the Official Management Portal of E Week. Stay tuned for more update on the events.

The article is written by Shubha Narayanan of NEN. She is touring campuses and events across the country to cover the highlights of E Week (www.eweekindia.org).