IIM Lucknow Hosts Entrepreneurship Summit 2011 from November 25-27, 2011

Entrepreneurship: The rising tide in uncertain times". The theme was chosen to emulate the importance of innovation and entrepreneurship in the present global economic scenario. End Quote

(1888PressRelease) November 29, 2011 - IIM Lucknow hosted the "Entrepreneurship Summit-2011" from November 25-27, 2011. The Entrepreneurship summit is the flagship event of the entrepreneurship cell of IIM Lucknow, conducted annually. This year the event was spread over three days and the theme was "Entrepreneurship: The rising tide in uncertain times". The theme was chosen to emulate the importance of innovation and entrepreneurship in the present global economic scenario and the emphasis would be on importance of innovation and invention for businesses to deliver during economic uncertainty.

Inauguration of the summit was done by Mr. Suneet Singh Tulli, CEO and Co Founder, Datawind (the company which has developed-Aakash, the world cheapest PC tablet) on 25th November 2011. Speaking on the occasion Mr. Tulli spoke about importance of failure and urged the audience to take risk and not to be afraid of failure. He said "Set your goals very high. Set them so high that you can never achieve them. It is not about reaching the goals. It is about the progress that one makes. The most important thing is enjoying the journey. Make friends who pat on your back for trying again, when you fail." He also mentioned that India is a land of opportunities, which has large proportion of young population with the biggest and unique market. Keeping in with theme of the summit, he announced a Student App Innovation contest where best 5 apps by students will receive a cash prize of Rs. 1 lakh each.

Day two of the summit on 26th November 2011 witnessed the 3rd edition of INDIA SME Conclave in association with IIA (Indian Industries Association). The theme of the conclave was "Growth Strategies for SME's". The SMEs face a host of issues such as lack of access to credit, excessive government regulation, an arbitrary and exploitative tax administration system, a weak technological base and the lack of business support services. The theme was centered on identifying these issues, the ways and means to address and mitigate them and there by helping the SME to graduate into a big corporate. The inauguration of the conclave was done by Mr. V.N. Garg, IAS, IID Commissioner, Govt. of Uttar Pradesh. He explained about the initiatives and various schemes and subsidies available for the MSMEs sector. He urged the financial institutions to provide proper exit strategy for the sick companies and even help them out by not levying high interest when the companies fall sick. He also emphasised the government's role in providing infrastructure, energy lands and other facilities for the SMEs.Mr. Kunwar Sachdev, CEO and founder of Su Kam Power Systems made the session livelier by sharing his entrepreneurial journey from selling pens on cycle to making the world's most trusted invertors. He emphasised on the fact that money never makes money, it is the idea and spirit that matters. He said that one of the key reasons for success of his enterprise is innovation and constant development of technology, which has allowed him to leave all the competition behind. He also mentioned the importance of focussing of human resources and talked about employee bonding activity followed in his company

Prof Sushil Kumar, faculty, IIM Lucknow also emphasised the need to constantly change and adapt to new technologies to stay in the business. He said that if one can't change, it will be difficult for one survive in today's cut throat completion. The conclave witnessed the participation of esteemed dignitaries like Mr K M Nair, Chief General Manager of SIDBI, Mr Anad Lunia, Founder of Seedfund and Mr. Manish Goel, General Secretary, IIA. Mr Anand Lunia emphasised on the importance of maintaining good relations with banks for any start up venture. He explained about the strategies and intricacies involved for a VC to fund an SME and what an MSME should consider before approaching a VC.The event saw enthusiastic participation both from representatives of various MSMEs and students.

Day 3 of the Entrepreneurship Summit witnessed a lot of student based competitions. The National level B-plan competitions, Samriddhi (general B plan) and Srijan (technical B plan) saw participation from various B-schools such IIM-A, ISB, TISS, IIM L and SP Jain. The participation was not confined only to the students from top B-schools and many recent commercial start-ups also participated. There were over 150 participants. The winning team was a recent start-up. Innovative ideas such as rural retail supply chain with social inclusion and traffic information solutions in metros won appreciation from the judges in Samriddhi, the general B plan competition. B-plan in mobile applications for high technology fields like mobile apps for android based phones to technical solutions for irrigation facilities were presented in Srijan, the technical B-plan competition

Esteemed dignitaries like Mr Anil Joshi, VP, Mumbai Angels, Mr Gagan Agrawal from Indian Angel Network, Mr. Anil Rajvanshi, Director, Nimbhakar, Agricultural Research Institute (NARI), Mr Gopal Sutwala, President, TIE, UP, and Professor Sushil Kumar and Professor Amit Agrahari, IIM Lucknow were the judges for the B-plan competitions. Judges were extremely impressed by some of the B-plans and decided to incubate and provide mentorship to two of the teams. The entrepreneurial game Bizness, a student competition for IIM Lucknow students, was conducted over a two day period during the summit. In this competition, each of the participating teams were given some seed capital. They had to use this capital to earn profits in 2 days. The team with maximum profits was awarded first prize. Students participated actively in this competition and came up with very creative plans like bike/car cleaning services on campus. The winning team of Vishnu, Hashim and Parvati came up with the idea of selling souvenir cups and mementos to students so they can forever cherish their favourite memories at IIM Lucknow.

Mr. Anil Joshi's session on Valuation of a Start up was an enriching session for the students of IIM Lucknow. He talked about various options for funding of a start up. He also talked about standard valuation techniques and how they are different for a start up and what are they various factors considered for valuation of a start up like the management team, years of experience etc.Session on social Entrepreneurship was taken by Dr. Anil Rajvanshi, Director, Nimbhakar Agricultural Research Institute (NARI). He emphasised that in India agriculture has still not been extensively modernised, there is an urgent need for significant technological improvements. There is where students from IIMs and IITs have a role to play. He also focussed on role of NARI in rural development.

The students, faculty, dignitaries, SMEs greatly appreciated this summit and stressed the importance of conducting such events which helps in bringing out the entrepreneurial skills in them. The Entrepreneurship summit provided a platform for students to not only present their ideas but also to seek guidance and mentoring from successful industrial veterans. It provided them with a unique opportunity to showcase their ideas in front of the like-minded people, the platform which helped them discuss the feasibility of their ideas and also obtain funding of their ventures. The summit also enabled the students to interact with SME's and understanding of real life scenarios of the strategies followed and problems faced by the SME's to sustain their businesses.

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