E-Summit 2012
E- Summit, the flagship event of The Entrepreneurship Cell, IIT Bombay
The Entrepreneurship Summit 2012
E- Summit, the flagship event of The Entrepreneurship Cell, IIT Bombay was held on 28th and 29th of January. It was for the first time that E-Summit spanned over two days encompassing every aspect of entrepreneurship, big and small. The vision was clear – first day will be dedicated to ‘informal’ events so as to warm up for the rigorous events on the second day. The E-Cell team, determined to make this year’s E-Summit the biggest, had clear ideas about every part of the Summit, its organization and execution.
The theme for E-Summit 2012 was unanimously chosen to be ‘Changing mindsets, creating leaders’. There is a huge thirst of innovation and path breaking ideas in the entrepreneurial world. The global economy needs leaders who can steer it to a better and brighter future. This was realized by the E-Cell team and therefore such a theme was adopted. The speaker sessions, panel discussions and all other events were modeled around the central theme of the Summit. Expectations from the summit were sky high in both the student community and the participating corporate.
The Summit was kick-started by Mr. R. Sriram; the keynote session witnessed the founder of Crossword and Next Practice Retail talk about the ‘Amazing world of enterprising’, and his own journey. Thus began Day 1 of E-Summit which would see speaker sessions, workshops and a bunch of competitions. Jim Beach, the founder of School for startups busted the prevailing myths of entrepreneurship in his speaker session while Christian De Neef of Fast Track Consulting talked about Future of innovation. Both Beach and De Neef would conduct workshops later in the event. ‘The Road Not Taken’ comprised of speakers who chose to tread a path of their own making and refused to follow the herd instinct. Day 1 also stood a witness to successful organization of beginners’ workshops and competitions which carried a handsome prize money.
The second day was dedicated to explore the fine lanes of entrepreneurship through speaker sessions, panel discussions and International workshops. Speakers on Day 2 included eminent names like Gaurav Gupta (Regional Director for Asia, Dalberg), Haresh Chawla (Ex-CEO, Network 18), VSS Mani (Founder, JustDial.com) and Rehan Yar Khan, in addition to Jim Beach and Christian De Neef. The panel discussions explored important topics viz. ‘Funding ecosystem in India’, ‘Challenges of an entrepreneur’ and ‘Business Innovation’. This was coupled with networking arena where budding and established startups were ‘Expanding their umbrella’. The second day would also mark the culmination of Eureka!, a journey that began 5 months back, and Pitch It! The winners were rewarded with prize money which would be utilized in executing their plans and business ambitions. The judges firmly believed that quality of participation was high, better even than some of the international competitions that the eminent panel had judged. This cements the fact that Indian Entrepreneurship is here to stay and that it would dominate the economy in the coming decades. This marked the end of the two day entrepreneurial extravaganza.
The ideology of E-Cell in general and E-Summit in particular, is to foster and encourage the spirit of entrepreneurship among the student community. What goes around in the economy has an impact on our lives directly or indirectly, and therefore indifference to it would not help. Martin Luther Jr. famously said, ‘Our lives begin to end the day we become silent about things that matter’. It is not the ‘silent people’ but the leaders who will shape our lives.
The E-Cell team had devoted E-Summit 2012 to this idea.
