The discussion topics would resolve around the difference in starting a business in India versus US and the change in environment over the last 15 years.Should you join a startup or start one and What’s a good path to entrepreneurship are some of the questions that will be given thought as well.

Join Amit and Rajul for an open discussion with start-ups, mentors, incubators, entrepreneurs and wannapreneurs at 6 LT 2 on 28th January 2012. Rajul now heads Sunstone Business School – a unique MBA for high quality working professionals. Previously, right out of IIT in 1998, he started what is now GlobalLogic, with over 6,000 people globally. On the other hand Amit started Lexity – Advertising on Autopilot for eCommerce in the US in 2009, after studying in the US, and working at Inktomi and Yahoo!

Visit http://sunstone.in/ and http://lexity.com/ for a better look on their ventures.

The event opened up by an address by the Co-chair and the driving force behind the forum, Mr. Sanjay Kadaveru who emphasized the importance of convening the seminar. He guided the assembly through the introduction of the proceedings and the goals they hoped to achieve that day. He called upon the entrepreneurs present to realize the need of the hour-to move towards an “inclusive growth”. He talked about moving towards a more growth mediated society in which government should form the larger framework of goals and the entrepreneurs should strive to fulfill them with the help up of government incentive and infrastructure. His address was received by enthusiasm by the people present and then he invited Mr. Sam Pitroda to take over the microphone.

Mr.Sam Pitroda, ex-Chairman of the National Knowledge Commission and currently Advisor to the Prime Minister of India on Public Information Infrastructure & Innovations had the crowd’s rapt attention the minute he walked on to the stage. He mentioned the three main problems facing the Indian policy makers today,
1) Disparity
2) Demography
3) Development, encompassing the challenged posed.
Moreover, he emphasized that the main challenges for development today were that of expansion, excellence and equity. In lieu of the past twenty years, he applauded the achievements of the telecom revolution and the liberalization of ’91. As a message for the social entrepreneurs, he revisited their importance in the world today, when presumably the best brains of the world are catering to the problems of the rich, while the “real” grass-root level problems of the poor go unheard.

He concluded by calling up for the need of more interactions like the AFI Forum before conceding the stage to Mr. Pradeep Gupta, Founder and Chairman, Cybermedia, who released the DASRA report.

Following the release, 11 speakers were selected randomly from the 100 social entrepreneurs present. The highlights about them were,
• Mr.Venkat Subramaniam, e-Farm: His business model stressed upon the support given to marketing of the produce from farmers, something he felt was very much neglected.
• Vinay Kumar, Digital Green: His firm made videos of the successful farm practices of the farmers and then showed it to other farmers.
• Anoop : His firm specialized in providing for the transportation of goods and inventory management for the farm holdings
• K. Sharadchandra, Butterfly fields: His plan included revolutionizing the elementary education by providing cheaper and more effective lab equipment to facilitate alternate learning methods.
• Dr.Yogesh Patil: He and his team had built a portable machine to test the blood Hb level to check for anemia at the much lower cost. This machine was also more scientific and accurate than the current methods used.
• Sujay Santra, I-Cure: His model was for training of health workers and for integrating medical instruments to record data, to be used by doctors later.
• Roshan, Graamvani: His team had been instrumental in developing a technology based participatory platform.
• Michael Machark: Simpa Network: The people at Simpa Network had proposed a pay per use solar energy model, in which each payment was also an investment towards eventually buying the solar panel.
• Piyush, Ounegy: The team at Ounergy are involved in training up of rural entrepreneurs to cover the trust deficit as it exists today.
• Bhawani, Amrita University: Her team had conceptualized a computerized interactive vocational educational model to train people more effectively and creating a larger skilled labour force.
• Chander Chauhan, Jaldoot: His model uses auto-rickshaws to transport water from source to villages at a nominal rate. The auto rickshaw was in itself a filtration unit, a first of its kind model.

The speakers were applauded by both the crowd in general and Mr.Pitroda in particular who held that the future of India was brighter with such talent available for us.

The speakers were followed by panel discussions by eminent panelists over the development of livelihood and growth through the social sector, driven by technology. The assembly then broke for lunch which was followed by five separate discussions in the Bharti Building, one each about; Livelihood, Health, Agriculture, Energy and Education – the five pillars upon which social structure is based upon.

The discussion were highly intensive in identifying the problems and plausible solutions in each of the sectors, following which everyone reassembled in the Seminar Hall, for each group to present a summary of the conclusions they had come to. This was followed by an ending remark by Mr.Pitroda about the effectiveness of such Forums and discussion for the future of a strong India.

To conclude, the conference was not a congregation of just ordinary men, nor was it a congregation of just extra-ordinary men. All it was was a group of people, linked together by their efforts towards a better present and a glorious future.

The event sponsored by the leading website Bharat Matrimony and IT leader Intel is to be held at the Seminar Hall, IIT Delhi on the 21st January from 8.30 a.m.

The Action for India is a Forum which strives to bring about successful social entrepreneurs, leading exports in technology and interested corporate partners, to provide a wealth of networing and learning opportunities for those looking to grow their organizations. The Forum aims at providing a platform for successful sharing of ideas and practices and to allow people to interest with pioneers in fields social sectors of -agriculture, education, energy, healthcare and livelihoods.

The event will be co-chaired by eminent social and technological experts such as Sanjay Kadaveru, Srikant Sastri, Ranjani Saigal and Vaibhav Gupta who over the years have had commendable success in inception, planning and implementation of many developement programs.

The event will provide a platform for personalities from varied sectors to involve in panel discussions. Some of these include emerging leaders like Dilip Modi, who has been spearheading mobility innovations, Natesh BV, Director, Nokia India, Chanchalapathi Dasa, Vice Chairman & Trustee, The Akshaya Patra Foundation to name just a few.

The AFI Growth Prize worth INR 5 lacks will be launched at the Forum to be awarded to social innovators in each sector who have shown great progress in their respective fields. Thus, the Forum promises to a great learning experience a
s well a tremendous chance to meet social developers, to interact with experienced entrepreneurs and to involve in the learning process with some of the brightest technological experts.

For registration, visit https://spreadsheets.google.com/viewform?formkey=dDdfUldNZVFDWTFUVDlQSFl0QjZJcVE6MQ

Date: 5th November
Time: 6:00 PM onwards

eDc IIT Delhi presents its first Black Series talk, ‘90 mins with the CEO’, with Mr. Ajay Chowdhary, on 6^th September at Senate Room starting 6 pm. Mr. Ajay Chowdhary is Founder, HCL & Chairman at HCL Infosystems Ltd. The aim of this interaction is to introduce the audience to new and developing technologies in the IT sector, and the whole lot of opportunities which it presents for budding entrepreneurs to delve in. Mr. Chowdhary may also share his experiences during the course of building his company from a nascent stage in the late 1970’s, to a leading IT consulting and outsourcing company, as we know it today. Critical issues related to the Web 2.0 sector will also be discussed and concerns regarding scalability will be addressed. Entrepreneurs are expected to learn the essentials of brand building, and to hone unique PR skills, from the most reputed name in the industry. The talk will essentially focus on the following topics:

• The entrepreneur’s journey of his life time
• Discussion on potential Web 2.0 start ups and their scalability
• Simplifying brand building for start-ups
• Demystifying the difference between big companies and start-ups
• Future of Indian Market for entrepreneurs
• The talk will be followed by an informal Q/A session

Venue: Senate Room

Date: 6^th September

Time: 6:00 PM onwards

Also later this month would be the Black Series Talk featuring a lot of eminent speakers who will be sharing their expert views on a lot of topics related to various misconceptions and prejudices which are often tagged along with the notion of Entrepreneurship. This would provide an excellent opportunity for students, especially those in their first and second year to increase their horizons about future planning and gain some inside insights in this area.

As the year unrolls, eDc promises to bring even more events and networking sessions for both the student and entrepreneur community. So get ready for the exciting year that lies ahead.

• Rahul Sharma, Co-founder and Executive Director, Micromax
• Mohit Bhatnagar, Managing Director, Sequoia Capital India
• Vivek Agarawal, Founder, EnglishEdge
• Vijay Shekhar Sharma, Founder and MD, One 97
• Rita Soni, CEO, NASSCOM Foundation
• Shradha Sharma, Founder, YourStory

The innovative feature of this year’s Summit was the Young Entrepreneur Start-Up Showcase where Start-Ups with less than 2 years of existence and with founders below 28 years of age currently, participated and 30 of them were shortlisted for showcasing their start-up and gathering at one place to share and exchange ideas with each other and other attendees.

To assist these Young start-ups, the first event of the Summit was a Panel Discussion on ‘What VCs look for while Investing in Start-Ups’ with the panel comprising of Soumitra Sharma from IDG Ventures, which is a $150 million enterprise and the world’s largest IT media company with branches in China, South Korea, San Fransisco and Vietnam . The other panelists were Anirudh Singh (Canaan Partners) and Ishan Gupta (One97Mobility Funds). The event helped start-ups get familiarized with the mindset of a Venture Capitalist as well as providing them an opportunity to pitch. The event was attended by all start-ups, but also budding and established entrepreneurs.

This was closely followed by Black Series lecture- historically witness to Tarun Tejpal, Vinod Dham and Sanjiv Bhikchandani- with Anil Patni (GM, Tata BP Solar Limited) as the speaker who spoke at length about the need of Renewable Energy Sources, the unexploited market in the domain and how it could turn out to be a hub of entrepreneurial opportunities. At the end of the event, the Start-Up Showcase was launched, as the whole crowd busied themselves understanding and appreciating the ideas and passion of the young entrepreneurs.

Some of the notable start-ups were Twtbuck- commercial advertising through Twitter, b10 Media- a social media management startup with an upcoming youth newspaper Youth360, Innovese Technologies- with products like yo! CAPTCHA.

Another keynote address was delivered by Professor Anil Gupta (IIM-Ahmedabad) – founder of HoneyBee Networks, who was thronged by enthusiastic attendees at the end of the event for views on specific topics, due to his expertise vision. The final event of the day was the Business Quiz, where more than 50 teams participated to celebrate the culture of knowledge in the domain of business.

27^th morning was witness to the first TED-x event at IIT-Delhi with 100 select attendees listening to the professional speakers delivering ‘Ideas worth Spreading’ with the theme titled ‘Passion’. The first speaker abiding to the 18-minute rule of TED-x was Mr. Pradeep Gupta- the founder of publishing house Cybermedia, who shared his views on the changing entrepreneurial trends in India, and where the growth story can become a disaster. Professor Dinesh Mohan (IIT-Delhi), who was the idea behind BRT Corridor succeeded him with a talk restricted on Entrepreneurial Ethics, and whether passion was a sufficient condition to succeed. He drew widespread appreciation for describing entrepreneurship as a means of change rather than a profit hub. Other speakers were Mr. Kishore Chakravorty who is a market observer and familiarized with the changing consumer market in India and Mr. Aseem Sadana (iSango) who explained how to move from ideas to execution. However, the notable speaker was Mr. William Bissell who developed a new theory altogether in an entrepreneurial way to alleviate poverty with the aid of parameters like Aggregate Economic Activity (AEA) and Targeted Catalyst (TC) of each individual. 

The other interesting events for the day included Workshops on Business Valuation and Business Modeling, with the audience being encouraged to participate in the interactive setup. A case-study competition was also organized, followed by the event-concluding and entertaining B-Roadies.

Thus the Summit was a 2-day bonanza for enthusiasts about new ideas, passion and making it big in life.

TEDxIITDelhi provides you with a golden opportunity to come up with innovative ideas for entrepreneurship and engage into riveting talks by remarkable people like Mr Pradeep Gupta, Mr William Bissell, Prof Dinesh Mohan and Mr Nitin Gupta. These eminent personalities have been connected to IIT and the world in the most culminating ways .An experience with them would provide you with an insight into today’s globalizing scenario. So don’t be lax in grabbing this opportunity before you regret the opportunity of a lifetime.

Mr. Mittal began with predicting India as one of the top 3 economies in the near future, and he had good enough reasons such as West’s struggle against slowdown, and China’s aggressive attitude making them believe the world’s dependence on them, which he saw as a benefit for India. In the post-liberalisation era, Bharti Airtel’s success story is one of the success stories, and that was what he was there to assess. Today as a result, it involves good amount of Foreign Direct Investment (FDI) and successful businessmen are being seen as a part of globalizing India.

Mr. Bharti Mittal began explaining his journey from the mid 70s, where they had huge difficulties in acquiring licensing for the work in the telecom sector, to gradually dealing with some of the largest MNCs such as SIEMENS, which trained them in great ways to work. He inferred the chief component was the will to make a difference, and when intentions were good, while dealing with stakeholders continuation gets easier and profits flow in automatically.

Some of the more important things he felt were empowering the operating team, and above all constantly adding value to business. This was what guaranteed the driving seat to an entrepreneur, and without value driving seat was as good as gone. Being the 3rd largest in-country Telecom network in the world and one of India’s few ventures ready to move overseas, he believed innovative services didn’t find its true worth until they were moved to the world. In Bharti’s eventual success, the key factor according to Mr. Rakesh was understanding the environment, and tapping the opportunities. Luck he defined as a situation where someone is absolutely ready to tap the opportunity at the door, and thus there was no such thing as relying on luck as per him.

While he suggested creating business models and outsourcing IT, he explained competition would always catch up. However, the interesting feature of course was the delay in catching up being proportional to the innovation involved. Never-say-die attitude and managing risks, which are an essential part of any venture, were described as integral to success.

While he reiterated his view on India being one of the top 3 economies and the youngest global environment, he viewed the challenge as the 300 million children in this same country devoid of educational facilities. As an effort, he talked proudly in an almost passionate way about the Bharti School of Telecommunication and Technology and the network of Satya Bharti Schools. While the former was a by-product of their interest to create more skilled labor in the field of telecom, the latter provides absolutely free education to about 30000 children nationwide. After that, he plans to deliver vocational education to every child above 16 thus equipping every child with the basic skill set. The problem of rural areas, he saw as an opportunity to make a difference but it was not just about teaching children, but creating an impact.

In a brilliant example which drew applause in between the speech, he exception how a street play by the classmates of a child about to be married, deferred the marriage thus speaking against child marriage successfully by creating impacts. In the end, he spoke of the Airtel Innovation Fund at Bharti with funds of the order of Rs. 200 crores, to fund young entrepreneurs as the country he believed, needed a wealth of success stories and not just money. His concluding line included the IIT students as being the clear platform for such success stories, to alter the future of India before speaking passionately to the crowds answering their queries.