Index Section A - Activity Report 1. Executive Summary:
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1.1 Vision and Mission 1.2 Approach of the Cell 2. Methodology:
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2.1 Initiatives: 2.1.1 RMSoEE, DPP and Entrepreneurship Corner 2.1.2 Fund-a-KGPian 2.1.3 StartIn 2.2 Competitions 2.2.1 Empresario 2.2.2 Concipio 2.2.3 Envision 2.3 Entrepreneurship Awareness Drive (EAD) 2.4 Global Entrepreneurship Summit (GES)
Section B - Impact Report 3. Impact of Initiatives:
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3.1 RMSOEE 3.2 StartIn 3.3 Mentorship Programme 3.4 I Change KGP 4. Global Entrepreneurship Summit GES: 4.1
Impact on Entrepreneurs:
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4.1.1
Competitions
4.1.2
Elevator Pitch
4.1.3
Start-up Camp 4.1.4
VC Panel Discussion
4.1.5
Co-founders meet
4.2Impact on general people: 4.2.1
Guest Lectures
4.2.2
Workshops
4.3
4.2.3
Innovation Exhibition
4.2.4
Panel Discussions
Impact on Entrepreneurship Cells: 4.3.1
Supporting other E-Cells
4.3.2
Connect the Dots Conference
4.4Impact on Global Community: 4.4.1
Global Entrepreneurship Conference
4.4.2
Foreign Entries and Winners
5. Entrepreneurship Awareness Drive EAD: 5.1
Impact on Students
5.2
Impact on Entrepreneurs
5.3
Impact on Colleges
5.4
Impact on EAD Cities
5.5
Pan-India Impact
6. Conclusion:
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6.1
Growth Chart
6.2
Testimonials
6.3
Towards building an entrepreneurial ecosystem
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Section- A : Activity Report 1. Executive Summary 1.1 Vision and Mission: Entrepreneurship Cell, IIT Kharagpur is a non-profit student organization, dedicated to the cause of promoting entrepreneurship among students. E-Cell actively incubates start up ideas linking the right entrepreneurs to the right investors and by generating awareness about the Government funds available to start ups. It invites various eminent entrepreneurs to deliver lectures to educate students about the joys and hardships of entrepreneurship. Guest Lectures, Business Plan workshops, Case study workshops, Knowledge Camps, patent workshops are conducted throughout the year to involve students in activities that are essential to an entrepreneur. The ultimate mission of Entrepreneurship Cell is to inspire an increasing number of students to start up on their own and to promote such ventures. 1.2 Approach of the Cell: The cell follows the following step wise approach in its year-long activities to achieve the mission mentioned above: 1. Generating awareness about entrepreneurship and the benefits of starting up. 2. Developing competencies among the aspiring entrepreneurs. 3. Developing and fostering entrepreneurial attitudes. 4. Building the support mechanisms that give momentum to the entrepreneurial spirit. 5. Securing funds, mentorship and other forms of assistance for the incubated start ups. Entrepreneurship Cell has two annual flagship events: Global Entrepreneurship Summit and Entrepreneurship Awareness Drive. Besides these, the following competitions were conducted during the last year: 1. Empresario 2. Concipio 3. Envision
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Methodology: 2.1 Initiatives: 2.1.1 RMSOEE, DPP and Entrepreneurship Corner: The Rajendra Mishra School of Engineering Entrepreneurship is a unique department in the IIT Kharagpur system with the aim of bringing excellence in Entrepreneurship education so that the most brilliant and young entrepreneurs will be able to quickly rise-up the ladder of success, hence bringing about an Entrepreneurial Renaissance in India. The Deferred Placement Program is a one-of-its-kind initiative, whereby a maximum of 10 students per batch can work on their startup after graduating and can sit in the placements of the institute again in case their startup fails to take off. Entrepreneurship Corner is a corner inside the Central Library, IIT Kharagpur that is dedicated to providing students access to books specifically related to entrepreneurship, famous entrepreneurs and core entrepreneurial skills. 2.1.2 Fund-a-KGPian: The Fund-a-KGPian initiative by E-Cell aims to tap the alumni resource-pool to help aspiring entrepreneurs whereby the former can provide assistance - Monetary, Seed-funding or Technical. The ideas short-listed through Concipio and Fund-a-KGPian programs are presented to a select group of alumni from the Alumni Panel. An alumnus may select ideas for which he would provide assistance through mentorship, seed-funding or network-building. 2.1.3 StartIn: The StartIn Internship Portal is a dedicated web-portal which connects students and leading startups to provide them summer internships. An internship in a startup proves more beneficial as compared to that in a large company since the student can produce a greater impact through flexible work procedures and gain a diverse work experience in a startup. The startup also gets an opportunity to fulfill their human resource needs from this initiative.
2.2 Competitions: 2.2.1 Empresario Empresario is the annual Global Business Plan competition organized by E- Cell, IIT Kharagpur for the benefit of aspiring entrepreneurs across the nation. This was the first edition of Empresario catering to all fields of ideas, namely Clean Technology, Social and Web & Mobile technology single handedly. The B-plan competition received a mammoth participation of 2152 entries including those from foreign universities such as Boston University. The winners received fittingly proportionate prize money to the
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tune of INR two Lacs each awarded by Entrepreneurship Cell, IIT Kharagpur . 2.2.2 Concipio: Concipio is the Annual In-house Business Plan Competition of IIT Kharagpur, open to the students, professors and alumni of IIT Kharagpur. The competition saw a massive participation with 62 entries received. The winners are given a chance to pitch before TIETS (Technology Incubation and Entrepreneurial Training Society), which provides a loan worth of Rs. 15 lacks as seed funding for the startup. 2.2.3 Envision: Envision is the Annual Product-Design Competition of IIT Kharagpur. The competition had a huge reach with 150 entries received. The final rounds were held during GES 2014 and an overseas entry from Nanyang Technological University,Singapore, “Intugine Technologies” emerged the winner of the competition. 2.3 Entrepreneurship Awareness Drive (EAD) Entrepreneurship Awareness Drive witnesses E-Cell's journey across the span of the entire nation, visiting various cities, and leaving in its wake students and budding entrepreneurs inspired by talks of eminent personalities from the region. Workshops were also conducted in many cities in collaboration with reputed organizations to give the participants an insight into entrepreneurship. In addition, the networking sessions between the participating start-ups and the dignitaries proved to be a usefulexperience for the entrepreneurs. The 2013 edition of EAD saw the following participating cities Patna, Mumbai, Pune, Vijayawada, Bangalore, Bhubaneshwar, Nagpur, Dehradun, Guwahati, Jabalpur, Chennai, Hyderabad, Visakhapatnam, Allahabad, Delhi, Kochi, Jaipur, Ranchi, Kolkata, Kharagpur. 2.4 Global Entrepreneurship Summit: Global Entrepreneurship Summit is the biggest Inter-Collegiate Entrepreneurship Summit in India. It is one of the largest platforms for free flow of thoughts and entrepreneurial ideas among the various strata of the entrepreneurial eco-system, comprising of the final round Judging of the national level competitions, panel discussion of Venture Capitalists, Global Entrepreneurship Conference, Guest lectures by well-known personalities in the field of entrepreneurship, Workshops by eminent business personalities and corporate experts and a Start-up camp.
Section– B : Impact Report 3. Impact of Initiatives: 3.1 Rajendra Mishra School of Engineering Entrepreneurship (RMSOEE) RMSOEE provides an M.S. degree in Entrepreneurship along with their B.Tech degree from their parent department. The program is a unique blend of courses like Marketing, Product Development and
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Manufacturing Management structured to impart core skills to aspiring entrepreneurs. Already, the school has selected 48 motivated students for the course, and all of them are working on their entrepreneurial projects, with due assistance from industry mentors and professors of the institute. The department has already developed an Innovation Lab, a state-of-the-art facility for ideation, discussion, analytics and product development. The ‘i-Lab’ is available for use 24x7 for all students of the school. 3.2 StartIn The StartIn Internship portal was a huge success with more than 50 startups providing internships to the students. The internships were from a wide range of profiles ranging from Web Design and Programming to Business Development and Marketing. The startups were from different cities all across India and had a very good response from the students who interned there. 3.3Mentorship Programme Prior to the competition finals at GES, the shortlisted entries are mentored by E-Cell’s associate partners for a period of 1.5 to 2 months. This year 30 of the shortlisted entries to our competitions benefitted from the professional expertise of industry stalwarts like TIE Kolkata, Mumbai Angels, Incubus, DSign Design, TLabs, Desmania Design and the like. 3.3 I Change KGP As we know, the first thing required for a start-up is an idea and an idea is a solution to a problem that exists or may exist.“iChange KGP” was a platform for the students of IIT Kharagpur to bring forward innovative solutions to common problems prevailing in IIT Kharagpurcommunity. Hence, its purpose was to add value to the community by solving problems that exist and promote startup culture in campus. This event was exclusively for IIT Kharagpur students.Some ideas were so impressive that they are being considered for implementation by the administration.
4. Global Entrepreneurship Summit: 4.1 Impact on Entrepreneurs: 4.1.1 Competitions: Our competitions have been designed in a way so as to cater to not only students, alumni and faculty of IIT Kharagpur but also to institutes all over India. We received around 2000 entries from elite colleges like IIMs, IITs, NITs, MBA schools and start-ups as well. The winners of the social category of Empresario have been given a chance to prove themselves on the global forum .Thus, our competitions provide a stepping stone and a platform for providing networks and seed capital to aspiring entrepreneurs.
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4.1.2 Elevator Pitch: Budding entrepreneurs got an excellent opportunity to pitch before an elite panel of Venture Capitalists and Investors. The top 11 competition entries, mostly from the student community, presented their ideas before 6 Venture Capitalists. 4.1.3 Start up Camp: GES ‘14 played host to a Startup Camp which served as a platform that connected the best startups of the country to students and Venture Capitalists. The Startup Camp witnessed participation of 15 of the most student relevant Startups in the country who showcased their product/services to students and VCs. The participating start-ups got a chance to pitch their ideas before prominent VC’s of the country, thus giving an impetus to their venture. Other benefits included finding appropriate partners, interns and networking. It also served as a platform of motivation and valuable learning for aspiring entrepreneurs. Around 800 students have registered with these startups for internship opportunities. 4.1.4 VC Panel Discussion: A VC Panel Discussion on the agenda "Roadmap for funding to a startup" was organized during the Summit which featured an elite panel of VCs and investors from different entrepreneurial ecosystems of the country. This proved beneficial for start ups and aspiring entrepreneurs by giving them an insight into an investor’s mind and helping them understand what investors look for in start ups. 4.1.5 Co-Founders Meet: For people looking for co-founders or wanting to join super-early-stage startups, this was the group to be in. Our goal was to organize a common platform in which both the start-ups who require Cofounders and others interested to join a start-up.Many interested and budding entrepreneurs came to this event and found a co-founder for their startups.
4.2 Impact on General People: 4.2.1 Guest Lectures: Participants from all across the nation got the opportunity to listen to personalities like Mr.Rajat Sharma-Founder India TV, Mr. AvinashVashistha , Chairman Accenture India, Mr.VarunAgarwal, Founder Almamater, Miss DevitaSaraf, CEO VU Technologies, Miss Ira Trivedi, Author, Entrepreneur, Mr M.N. Srinivasu, Co-Founder Billdesk , Mr. FarrhadAcidwalla ,Founder Rockstah Media and Mr. Amarendra Mishra. All these sessions saw an active participation of students. Using their own examples and experiences, the speakers were able to provide the students insights into entrepreneurship as well as direction to budding innovators and entrepreneurs.
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4.2.2 Workshops: GES’14 played host to the following workshops: 1. 2. 3. 4. 5.
Workshop on ‘Cloud Computing’ by IBM. Workshop on ‘Product Architecture’ by Infosys. Workshop on ‘Supply Chain Management’ by Flipkart. Workshop on ‘Ideation and Concept Development ‘ byTechMahindra. Workshop on ‘Capital Markets’ by BSE.
6. Workshop on ‘Legal Aspects for startups by Your Startup Solutions. 7. Workshop on ‘Lean Startup Implementation on AWS’ by Amazon. 8. Workshop ‘Taxation for Startups’ by Taxmantra. 9. Workshop on ‘Different Aspects of E-commerce Startups’ by 10Kya.com. All these workshops deployed interactive techniques like Case Analysis, Open House Discussions and Software Support and had far-reaching impact on the participants.
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4.2.3 Innovators Exhibition: Some of the most innovative products developed both inside and outside the institute were kept on display in the arena for all the participants to observe. The inventors themselves demonstrated the various features of their products, giving the participants insights and guidelines on how to make successful engineering innovations and designs. 4.2.4 Panel Discussions: The panel discussion had industry leaders and innovators on the panel. The VC panel discussion debated on ‘Roadmap for funding to a startup’ and had 6 investors on the panel. The Product TechnologySeminar traced the life-cycle of a product, right from ideation and design to patenting and marketing. The Innovator’s Conference was a confluence of the Best Innovators in India, who shared their insights on Innovation and Engineering Design. All of these panel discussions were very well received by the participants and saw their active participation.
4.3 Impact on Entrepreneurship Promoting Bodies 4.3.1 Supporting other E-Cells: Entrepreneurship Cell, IIT Kharagpur extends its support to other E-Cells, EDCs and like-minded organizations in terms of structuring of such ventures and means of launching entrepreneurial programs. It shares its mentor pool, investor network and other resources apart from giving them insights to the various funding opportunities available for entrepreneurs. E-Cell, IIT Kharagpur has provided assistance to 11 such entrepreneurship promoting bodies such as those of IIT Delhi,
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Jadavpur University Kolkata, CBIT Hyderabad, BIT Patna and many more. 4.3.2 Connect the Dots Conference: GES’12 hosted a “Connect the Dots Conference” in which delegations were invited from E-cells and EDCs of colleges from all over India. These organizations interacted with each other by exchanging ideas, discussing common problems and their solutions and shared their impact with respect to the present entrepreneurial environment of the country. They also gave a presentation on their respective E-Cells. The Conference was a one of a kind initiative to bridge the gap that separates entrepreneurial development across India, which is required for the unbridled growth of entrepreneurs across the country.
4.4 Global Reach and Impact: True to its name, the Global Entrepreneurship Summit 2014 created a global impact and reach through the following avenues: 4.4.1 Global Entrepreneurship Conference (GEC): th
GES 2014 played host to the 5 edition of GEC in India. Imminent Panelists -Professors: 1) GaryRhoads,Stephen Mack Covey Professor of Marketing/Entrepreneurship Marriott School, Brigham Young University, Provo, US 2) Hee Carol, Director of the Center for Sustainable Enterprise, Assistant Professor of Strategy and Entrepreneurship, Kenan-Flagler Business School , University of North Carolina, Carolina, US 3) Dr. HosseinRahnama, Research Director at the Digital Media Zone, Ryerson University, Toronto, Canada Entrepreneurs: 1) DhruvAdhia, CTO, H+ Technology, Toronto, Canada 2) Sam Cawthorn,Motivational Speaker, Entrepreneur,Sydney;discussed the entrepreneurial scenarios in their respective universities and sought to find global solutions to local problems through this unique platform. The entire discussion was an interactive session via video conferencing where the participants were directly connected to the global pioneers in entrepreneurship. 4.4.2 Foreign Entries and Winners: Our Business Plan Competition, Empresario and the Product-Design Competition, Envision, saw numerous entries from outside India. Entries from some foreign universities like ‘Nanyang Technological University, Singapore’ were quite impressive.
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Participation in various events in GES 2014 Startup Camp Bizquiz Connect The Dots Conference Panel Discussions Workshops Workshop By Flipkart Closing Ceremony Inauguration Ceremony Guest Lectures GEC
5. Entrepreneurship Aware ness Drive: 5.1 Impact on Students: The Entrepreneurship Awareness Drive, 2013 had a significant impact on a large number of students in India. It was attended by about 15,000students in 20 cities across India. A thorough understanding of entrepreneurship was imparted by means of guest lectures delivered by eminent entrepreneurs and workshops, which were organized in many of the cities. The participants were not only inspired to “start up”, but also benefitted from the interactive sessions with these experienced personalities. A total of 46 guests were a part of EAD 2013 and shared their valuable insights with students. The drive was especially significant for two–tier and three tier cities like Patna, Vijayawada, Visakhapatnam, Nagpur and Pune where such initiatives are uncommon. Thus, the EAD, a one of a kind student body initiative managed to reach out to a large faction of the student community and helped in promoting the spirit of entrepreneurship among them.About 35% of the entries in our Business Plan Competition-Empresario were from participants of EAD, which underlines the impact of this unique initiative towards motivating young minds towards entrepreneurial thought and action. 5.2 Impact on Entrepreneurs: A number of aspiring and established entrepreneurs and start-ups, mostly student ideated, participated in the Entrepreneurship Awareness Drive. They were inspired to back their ideas through innovation. An idea of the difficulties faced during working on a start-up was shared with them. The entrepreneurs benefitted a lot from the one to one interactive sessions with many of the guest personalities and learnt from their vast expertise in their respective fields. Apart from this, students with raw ideas were made
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to realize the opportunities and resources available for developing their ideas. It is essential to reach out to this section of our economy, considering the harsh entrepreneurial environment in our country. Entrepreneurship Cell, IIT Kharagpur managed to find a good platform to do this through the EAD. 5.3 Impact on Colleges: A total of 138 colleges were represented in EAD 2013, with 20 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 in the form of certificates. 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. 5.4 Impact on EAD Cities: Entrepreneurship Awareness Drive 2013 had a footfall of about 15,000 with the city-wise distribution as shown in the chart below:
Impact on EAD cities Nagpur Hyderabad Vijaywada Pune Mumbai Kolkata Delhi Dehradun Allahabad Bhopal Kochi
5.5 Pan-India Impact: Although EAD 2013 was held in 20 cities, it was designed to create a national impact and buzz about entrepreneurship. All the city-wise Entrepreneurship Awareness Camps as well as the entire campaign
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as a whole was extensively publicized through online and offline media channels. Articles appeared in leading dailies like the Times of India, Telegraph and also on online media channels as well as on the websites of other prominent entrepreneurship promoting bodies. The event was also publicized through our Twitter and Facebook page, which is the most active page of any entrepreneurship promoting body in India, with nearly 6000 likes and over 1000 monthly active users. A brief break-up of the online publicity reach is depicted in the pie chart below:
Overall Reach Delhi Noida Patna Ranchi Chennai Jaipur Bangalore Chandigarh Vijaywada Kolkata Kharagpur
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Section-C: Future Endeavors 6.1 Growth Chart:
2500
2000
1500 2012-13 2013-14
1000
500
0 Entries (Scale Relative)
GES Footfall
EAD Reach(No. Of Colleges Visited)
Entrepreneurs Mentored
6.2 Testimonials: “It is highly encouraging to find such young people working to promote Entrepreneurship. I wish the team will come out with many such events.” - Mr. Richard Kemp, Management Guru, UK on GES
“E-Cell is doing a tremendous job in promoting entrepreneurship. India needs more ecosystems like thisto become a Superpower.” -Dr. D. SubbaRao, Governor, RBI “The fact that E-Cell already has companies that have raised funding and become successful is proof thatthe system works.” - Mr. Suneet Singh Tuli, CEO, Datawind (Maker of the Aakash Tablet)
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“Each time I visit IIT KGP I see a marked improvement in the energy and momentum at the campus onentrepreneurship.” - SramanaMitra, Silicon Valley entrepreneur and Forbes columnist on E-Cell’s activities “It is highly appreciative to see event on entrepreneurship for students in Bangalore.” -Dr. KiranMazumdar Shaw, Chairman and M.D., Biocon Limited on EAD, Bangalore “A big thank you for inviting me to the event, it was a learning experience; I would like to get engagedwith E-Cell more in the long run.” - Mr. Bhaskar Roy, Director, Chikpea on the Startup Camp
6.3 Towards building an Entrepreneurial Ecosystem: We would like to conclude this impact report with a vision, the vision of our former President, Dr APJ Abdul Kalam. The Vision 2020 as envisaged by him foresaw a nation finally reaping the fruits of freedom equitably. The major step towards this ambitious goal is education and job creation. While the Indian education system is steadily churning out increasing number of educated youth, job creation remains a pressing issue. By opening the gates to foreign investors in 1991, our present Prime Minister DrManmohan Singh ushered in the era of globalization and open entrepreneurship in India. Truly, entrepreneurship remains the surest way of job and wealth creation for a developing nation like ours. We have been promoting Entrepreneurship since our establishment in 2006 and we must say that the entrepreneurial culture has firmly embedded itself in minds of several students as opposed to the scant few just a decade ago. We have been doing our bit to promote entrepreneurship both on and off campus. We sincerely hope that our efforts grow in scale and impact over the coming years and that an entrepreneurial revolution sweeps Indian youth. We also hope to coordinate with all like-minded and inspired e-leaders and organizations promoting this just cause. Moreover, we hope to empower the next billion, the under-privileged India through entrepreneurship and innovation. We sincerely pray that our vision will get fulfilled and hope we will make a difference in the future of our great nation, Yours Sincerely, Entrepreneurship Cell, IIT Kharagpur
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