E - Factor

Conquest 2010

2010-09-11T23:12:00.000+05:30

CEL, Bits Pilani hosted its annual international business plan competition Conquest on 21^st and 22^nd 2010. The event, which was the final round of the business plan competition, saw the top four teams from the previous rounds battle it out to win the coveted prize of ` 1.5 Lakh.

The final round required the participants to present their business plans in the form of a closed door presentation. The finalists were judged on the basis of their clarity of thought, the viability of their business model and their pitching and presentation skills. The judges’ panel consisted of seasoned entrepreneurs, venture capitalists and academicians from the world of entrepreneurship.

The first prize of ` 1,50,000 went to Amrita Health Care Solutions, a project developed by students of NIT Surathkal whose team also included two doctors from SRM Medical College, Chennai. Their idea was to provide health care solutions to people in rural areas through an innovative mechanism. The solution envisages a medical diagnosis by means of patient-machine interaction and later, the patient gets a medical solution on the basis of the symptoms and interaction. Thus health care services can be imparted in villages where there are no doctors but only health care workers are available. The runner’s up prize of ` 50,000 went to Team Haplaw from BITS Pilani. Their business plan aims at providing real time legal services online.

Conquest 2010 was the culmination of an eight month process which included calling for entries, vetting, evaluation by experts and final presentation. Speaking on the process of the competition, this year’s Conquest coordinator, Mr. Ajay Bhise said, “We recieved over 500 entries for the first round. Out of these, about 90 entries were from abroad. Senior faculty of BITS along with our alumni screened the first round and selected around 40 entries which went to other experts in industry for evaluation. These 40 entries were asked to send their detailed business plans which were judged by seasoned entrepreneurs and venture capitalists and finally four business plans were chosen for the final presentation to be made at Conquest 2010 finals”.

Conquest 2010 also hosted the Global conference of E-Cells organized in partnership with NEN. The conference saw the participation of student entrepreneurship leaders from 20 colleges across the country. The Global Conference aimed to provide a unique collaboration among Entrepreneurship cells for the promotion and development of entrepreneurship in the country. Besides serving as a platform for the National Entrepreneurship Network, the Global Conference provided a platform to share ideas, innovation and experience. The Conference also provided opportunities for networking among counterparts in all participating institutions.

Conquest 2010 participants had an opportunity to interact with entrepreneurs, venture capitalists and experts which included Dr J P Narayan, President, Loksatta Party and a former civil servant. Other speakers included: Mr Dhiraj Rajaram, Founder and CEO of Mu-Sigma, Mr Anuj Sharma, COO of Sarvajal, Mr Vijay Shukla, Founder of Setu Ventures, Mr Sujit Panigrahi of Live Plus aim for Good Fitness, Mr Gautam Gandhi, Head of Google New Ventures India, Mr Ankur Singla, Founder of Coraza Advisors and Mr Ashish Sinha, Co-Founder of PluGGd.in.

The judging panel for the business plan competition included Mr. Prajakta Raut, Mr. Sujit Panigrihi, Mr. Aditya Natrajan and Mr. Vijay Shukla.

The valedictory function marked the end of Conquest 2010 were the Director, BITS Pilani, Pilani Campus, Prof G Raghurama presented trophies and prize cheques to the winning teams. Addressing the gathering at the ceremony, Professor-in-Charge of the Center for Entrepreneurial Leadership, Prof Arya Kumar said, “It is a matter of satisfaction that out of 10 winners of the past six competitions, seven have already been translated into ventures and this speaks of how our business competition is innovatively different”. Giving a piece of advice to the participants, Prof Kumar added, “Winners never quit, and quitters never win. Once you decide on your plans, please go ahead and work hard to translate it into reality”.

Conquest 2010 was sponsored by Mu Sigma, a company which has pioneered in analytics outsourcing and providing high quality business decision support services. Other sponsors included Tata Steel, Myntra.Com and Yuva magazine.

Conquest is an annual business plan competition cum entrepreneurship conclave organized and hosted by the Center for Entrepreneurial Leadership, BITS Pilani since 2004. For more details visit www.celbits.org/conquest

Sparks New Ventures

2010-04-14T22:53:00.008+05:30

Sparks New Ventures is a program, conducted in association with BITSAA to help students create technology-based startups. It is offered as a business plan course and the main purpose is to not only study entrepreneurship but practice it. Student teams are expected to create a startup and write a business plan including all the essential aspects of creating a new venture. The program was launched in Fall 2009 and was an invaluable experience for truly aspiring entrepreneurs.

Salient Features:

The course features guest lectures from prestigious entrepreneurs, investors and academicians with strong experience in creating and running startups.
Each team is assigned an experienced entrepreneur mentor who guides them through the semester and beyond. Mentors include successful entrepreneurs and investors from top tier firms (DFJ, Sequoia, Helion, Nokia).
The teams compete with each other and the best teams will be awarded seed funding to pursue their business idea after the completion of the course.
Lectures provide introduction to concepts and tools essential to the entrepreneurial process, overview of the technology enterprise, and the role of the individual and team within high-impact ventures.
Students study and implement various facets of a startup – product development, market research, technology viability, fund raising, competitive analysis, team formation, marketing & sales strategy.

Application Instructions:

Write an essay in 500 words or less. Include
1. Entrepreneurship goals (Why entrepreneurship?)
2. Entrepreneurship efforts to date
3. Describe 2 business ideas you would like to pursue. Describe problem, size of problem & solution. If applying as a team, 1 of the business ideas should be shared with the team.
4. Your Name & Contact (email + phone), Team Name & Members (include primary contact)
Applicants are encouraged to create a team of 3-5 members prior to applying.
All applicants should submit individual applications.
Use Microsoft Word for your submission. Please DO NOT submit Adobe PDF files.
Students from all years and disciplines are encouraged to apply.
Email your application to Dr. Arya Kumar (aryakum@gmail.com) and Abhinav Khushraj (akhushraj@bitsaa.org)

Lectures & Presentations – Pedagogy:

Two guest speaker lectures each week on a startup topic
Elevator pitch contest & three pitch-deck presentations
Bi-weekly mentoring sessions with the assigned mentor
Field-trip to New Delhi to meet with entrepreneurs and investors

Deadline

The deadline to apply for Sparks New Ventures is April 18, 2010 11:59 P.M.

TEDxPilani

2010-04-01T01:27:00.000+05:30

We presented TEDxPilani with its theme "Unveiling India" in association with APOGEE 2010, the technical festival of BITS, Pilani. The event was held on the 13^th of March 2010 in the auditorium of BITS, Pilani.

The TEDx program is an initiative by TED to allow local communities to organize their own, independently organized TED-like events and share their videos through the world-wide TEDx Channel.

The program had 18-minute talks from eight speakers from diverse fields sharing stories or ideas like never before. The talks had been orchestrated around the TED format of short yet impactful talks meant to inspire, inform and instigate change for a brighter India. With a plethora of speakers, video interludes (graphics support by CDS Solutions) and other surprises, TEDx Pilani gave the youth a paradigm shift to contemporary ideals from the clichéd viewpoint sporting our cultural enigma and age-old mythology. TEDx Pilani was hosted by Prathamesh Naik, a TED fellow.

The event began with Dr. K.N. Ganeshaiah who is an agricultural scientist and famous Kannada writer, whose style of writing is renowned for weaving stories around Indian mythology and real historical events. During his talk, he said that he was a person who had explored many myths and miracles and had found in them many scientific lessons. He jokingly regarded Hanuman as a ‘Bio-Pirate’ who in search of the Sanjevani herb, is believed to have lifted the whole mountain and flown back to India. He related this myth to science and made a hypothesis of the existence of such a ‘Resurrecting Plant’ and described his search for it. By giving a few logical arguments, he suggested the existence of such a herb (Selaginella Bryopteris) which could treat the situation the medical condition of coma. Similarly, he explained a few other myths and while concluding, said that scientists are the people who question God whereas artists will never dare to do that.

The other speakers included Kartick Satyanarayan, an activist, founder of Wildlife SOS in India, and TED Fellow. He is also known as bear-man for his dedicated efforts. He talked about how he has worked to eradicate animal cruelty especially the painful street shows of Dancing Bears in a community called the Kalander community in North India. In his pursuit, he completely changed the lifestyle of the whole community. He setup veterinary hospitals for the bears and gave them an environment in which they can live with full freedom like they live in forests. As a result of his efforts, the ill treatment to bears completely stopped on the 18^th of December 2009. The ill practice of ‘Bear Dancing’ does not take place in India anymore. These days, he converts tiger poachers and the like into better humans by giving them an alternative source of livelihood and also by using their expertise in hunting to actually save animals.

Rahul Roushan is an entrepreneur who owns Faking News which publishes fake news out of real happenings to infuse the element of satire around politics and lifestyle. He began his talk by hilariously connecting the talk of all his previous speakers and spontaneously creating fake news! With his ready wit and subtle humor, he charmed the audience thereby presenting himself as an entertainer.

Nakul Shenoy is a famous psychic corporate entertainer. His talk started with a magic trick in which he ‘invisibly’ transferred a bunch of cards from one volunteer to another! Thereafter, he performed a fabulous feat by reading the minds of a few people in the audience from a distance of about 10 to 20 meters. The whole audience was spell-bound, maybe literally!

Vishal Talreja is a social entrepreneur who runs the Dream-a-Dream Foundation. Recipient of the prestigious Asoka Fellowship, he helps street children in Bangalore grow out of poverty and lead happy lives. In his talk, he talked about how he chose to become a social entrepreneur and his journey as one. He began his talk by giving touching examples from his life which made him take this path. In the latter part of his speech, he talked about his firm ‘Dream-a-Dream’ which believes that every child has a right to a fun learning environment. It believes in empowering children through giving them life skills.

Harish Sivarakrishnan is a computer scientist and platform evangelist at Adobe. He is one of the pioneers of Adobe flash and Adobe flex platforms in India. He believes that, one should ‘light a blub’ wherever one can. He said that the concept of a good user interface varies from person to person and is very difficult to generalize. He believes that, in this world of internet shopping, our choices depend on how the interface looks and how easy and intuitive it is to use. He then proved his point by giving a live demonstration of a software which he had created using which he booked a airplane ticket without even touching the keyboard! And ya he’s an ex-Bitsian…

Nitin Gokhale is the Defense and Strategic Editor at NDTV. He has an experience of 27 years in his field. He started his talk by mentioning the different security challenges India faces in the current political scenario. According to him, we are a part of the most turbulent region in the world because we are surrounded by a group of unstable countries like Bangladesh, Nepal, Sri Lanka and Pakistan. We are also facing ‘externally sponsored Jihad’ and internal armed movements of Naxals. Other issues like communal and economic divide, non military threats and pandemics constantly damage our growth rate as well. He felt that urgent steps are required in this regard.

Cleo Paskal is a famous climate change expert and author of the popular book “Global Warring”. She is an avid researcher in her field and a fellow of the famous Chatham House, U.K. She began her speech with a call to all the earthlings to clear the mess created by themselves in the last 100 years. She suggested the current energy and legal infrastructure was completely based on a model which considered earth to be a non-dynamic environment, but now that the whole earth is changing as a result of global warming, this infrastructure needed to be severely upgraded and changed. She strongly felt that limiting loss is an important way of promoting growth.

All this left the audience spell-bound and hoping for an even bigger, an even better TEDx Pilani 2011.

2010-03-12T16:30:00.001+05:30

CONQUEST 2010 - BITS,Pilani's Business Plan Competition

"The Center for Entrepreneurial Leadership (CEL), BITS-Pilani invites you to participate in Conquest 2010. Conquest is a unique business event that helps transform ideas into reality"

The Center for Entrepreneurial Leadership (CEL), BITS-Pilani recently announced that it has started inviting entries for its prestigious event, Conquest - The Business Challenge. Set up jointly by the faculty, students and alumni, CEL is one of the leading entrepreneurial cells in the country. It works to encourage entrepreneurship among the student community. It is also a co-founder of the National Entrepreneurship Network (NEN).

Conquest is a unique business event that helps transform ideas into reality. This business-plan competition includes intensive mentoring by industry champions and a rigorous simulation involving real-life start up conditions. It doesn't just invite your business plans and provide professionals to mentor you but tests if you have the mettle to live up to the trying circumstances of starting up.

The competition is open to all students and corporates in the country. It encourages business plans from all industries - IT, Manufacturing, Pharmacy, Health Services, Rural Development, Infrastructure, Biotechnology, Finance & Marketing etc.. With prizes of more than INR 3 lakhs and Angel funding opportunities up to 20,000$, Conquest promises its participants a highly challenging and rewarding experience. Partnered By BITSAA, TiE, IDG &NEN gives an aspiring entrepreneur the exposure he needs.

Conquest has been an exhilarating experience with entries coming in from IIM's, IIT's, ISB and other premier institutes across the country and across the globe including NSU. 4 out of 6 of the previous winners have already successfully started up.

"Innovate, Inspire, Conquer"

Last Date for submission of executive summaries is 1800hrs 6th April 2010.

http://www.celbits.org/conquest

For queries Contact:
Ajay Bhise
+919571552887

M.Deepika
+919602213355

IEE wins Epsilon 2010

2010-02-14T15:27:00.002+05:30

The finals of Epsilon 2010, the Intra BITS business challenge were held yesterday. Team IEE (BITS Pilani Goa campus), which aims to provide an integrated education environment to the students was declared the eventual winners in a closely fought competition. As part of the finals, the teams were supposed to give a presentation on their BPlan, followed by a Q&A session in which the judges grilled the teams on the various aspects of their plan. With business plans as diverse as Fanatic Republic, Haplaw and Searchcompletedotcom, judges applauded the budding entrepreneurs for their innovative thinking and their zeal to start up.

Meanwhile the winning team gets a direct entry into Conquest 2010, our international BPlan competition

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Seeking social entrepreneurship resources

2010-02-08T07:08:00.003+05:30

At the Center for Entrepreneurial Leadership's Rural Entrepreneurship Development(RED) division we're on the look out for market based approaches to helping rural communities (often right outside the campus).

However, what is also important is to educate the college community regarding the pressing social issues that plague our nation (and the world) and how enterprises (often community lead) can help uplift sections of society. RED would like to help create a class of more responsible BITSians who are socially conscious and use their technological and business acumen to find solutions to alleviating poverty and help generate income for rural communities.

It is for this reason that we're creating a RED resource section which will contain information on the emerging sectors, case studies of success stories (and sometimes failure) of models that worked at the Base of Pyramid, books that inspire on to get their hands dirty, reports that show figures and business models, important articles from credible sources. Hopefully, more and more BITSians will skim through it and realize the incredible opportunities that lay in front of them in the responsible business sector.

We're in the middle of the compilation, which should be completed anytime next week. We also plan to publish this resource on one of the top blogs on social entrepreneurship in India.

If you can contribute to this resource in anyway (articles, books, reports, case studies), please shoot me a mail at rishabh at celbits dot org or Eshaan at eshaan at celbits dot org

Eweek 2010 Inauguration Ceremony

2010-02-07T14:03:00.003+05:30

India : Opportunities Within is the theme for Entrepreneurship Week 2010, being held in Birla Institute of Technology and Sciences, Pilani. Held in the lush green QT the ceremony captured the theme in full essence. Prateik Pothuneedi, President, Center for Entrepreneurial Leadership (CEL) administered the oath to all students, participants and faculty members, who pledged to promote entrepreneurship and making it a way of life.

Speaking on occasion Vice Chancellor L.K. Maheshwari advised the students to think out of the box and to develop a keen sense of observation. Narrating experiences from his own life he said that, “Work for betterment of society should drive entrepreneurship.” Prof. Arya Kumar Faculty Advisor of CEL highlighted India’s growth potential and emphasized on the opportunities available in agriculture, infrastructure, and health sectors. He then went on emphasize NEN’s job in creating an ecosystem where entrepreneurs and their ideas can flourish. According to him the fact that more than 70 ventures have come up in the last one year speak volumes about NEN,s commitment to promote the spirit of entrepreneurship. Prof. Usha Manjunath, member EDIPR BITS Pilani, talked about the importance of technological innovations and how an engineering institute like BITS Pilani can take steps to promote technology entrepreneurship.

With the Eweek events slated to begin from today, it surely will be a gala time for all students and faculty members

TED sessions at Pilani

2010-01-25T00:13:00.005+05:30

TEDxPilani preps are in full swing, and the whole of CEL is tirelessly working towards making this one kickass event worth talking about. After all that's the whole point of TED, or TEDx, which plans to replicate TED for thousands more: To get people talking about what they witnessed.

Today I gave a small talk and moderated a followup discussion with a room full of 50 enthusiastic BITSians introducing to them the TED philosophy as well as hinting what we've been upto regarding TEDxPilani. As the host, I got to choose the talk I wanted to be shown and I chose the one which I thought would be highly relevant at such a gathering. I chose Sir Ken Robinson's talk on how creativity is as important as literacy in today's context.

The crowd loved the talk (I know this because they were laughing at all the right places). The follow-up discussion also threw up some interesting insights and we covered a whole variety of topics related to the talk such as how is this talk relevant in the Indian context given the myriad of socio economic differences in each part of the country.

Some said how such a talk wasn't enough to spark a motivation to change the entire education system. Some also felt that given the economic condition of India and the safety that a conventional job offered, it's much better follow the traditional route, while simultaneously following one's passion. Some also felt that the change while might not take place in the education system, parents and schools should be supportive enough to back the natural talents of students.

I feel the job of TED is to get the people thinking. And its probably through the TEDx initiatives that the audience they cater to will grow larger and exponentialize and in this way more and more people will start to seriously lend an ear to these ideas that are churned out during such conferences in dozens.

We will also be updating you folks on the progress of TEDxPilani.

At the same time if any of you have come across an incredible speaker, do forward his contact or make an introduction. Please get in touch with us at aniket@celbits.org

Do turn up at LTC for TED sessions every Sunday where we will be playing videos every week.

Conquest 2010

2009-12-24T21:37:00.002+05:30

After a successful Conquest-2009, we are working towards making the 7th edition of Conquest yet another success and provide a bigger platform to young entrepreneurs. We plan to hold this edition in August,2010. Conquest 2010 will have several auxiliary events like the Business Quiz, The Conquest Debate and Tissue B-Plan competition, targeting the debating entusiasts and huge qizzing community in BITS, Pilani. There will also be Idea Cafe and Start-Up Showcase held before the grand finale as the 'Pathway to Conquest'.

Keep reading the blog for further details about Conquest 2010.

Epsilon 2010 finalists to be announced on 25 December

2009-12-20T18:54:00.003+05:30

The eight finalists of Epsilon 2010 will be revealed on the 25^th of December. The selected teams will be provided mentoring by entrepreneurs specific to the fields of their plans. We hope that the advice and the assistance the teams receive will not only help them to improve upon their business plans but also go a long way in enabling them to actually start- up.

Epsilon 2010 began with the ‘Idea-Farm’ which took place in September 2009, and was all about coming up with innovative business ideas that can be implemented in the real world. The next stage involved submission of entries; and judging by the number of entries and enthusiasm shown by students it won’t be wrong to say that Epsilon has managed to create quite a buzz on campus. From the 200 “Ideas" received from all the three campuses, 43 teams were selected for the next round which required them to submit an executive summary of their plans.

In the meanwhile, six Business Plan Workshops (BPWs) were organized for the benefit of the teams. The BPWs were conducted by successful entrepreneurs who delivered talks on a wide range of topics like 'Sales and Marketing’, ‘Tactics to grow a Start-up’, ‘Fundamentals of a Business Plan’ and ‘Social Entrepreneurship’. These workshops went a long way in making students understand the actual intricacies and the otherwise tricky concepts involved in writing a BPlan and also made them aware of some common mistakes that can prove to be detrimental to their BPlan.

Now with the results coming out shortly all the teams will have to gear up for the challenge ahead. The finalists are required to submit their complete business plans and as is the norm, the winner of Epsilon gets a direct entry into the finals of Conquest, our international BPlan Competition.

Sparks New Ventures Final Presentation

2009-12-18T11:07:00.004+05:30

BITSAA International in association with the Center for Entrepreneurial Leadership, BITS Pilani initiated an innovative, first of its kind course at BITS Pilani called Sparks New Ventures aimed at promoting and supporting technology based startups at BITS Pilani. The programme, coordinated by Mr. Abhinav Khushraj comprised of several online lectures by eminent personalities across the world on topics essential to a startup's growth and success; as well as extensive mentoring for the participating teams by eminent professionals. The programme also includes seed funding for the top performer of the class.

In its maiden edition, Sparks managed to create ripples across campus as well as among alumni networks for its meticulous planning & execution as well as impact on the status of entrepreneurship support on campus.

The participating teams delivered their final presentations of Business Plans on 25th November, 2009 at the Lecture Theater Complex (LTC) at BITS Pilani. 3 teams, who worked on 3 different technology-startups over the semester had prepared a Business Plan and presented their ideas in front of a jury comprising of Prof. Arya Kumar, Unit Chief- Entrepreneurship Development & IPR Unit; Professor Anil K. Bhat, Group Leader, Management Group & Mr. Abhinav Khushraj, Strategy & Business Development Manager, Nokia & Coordinator of the programme.

Watch the full presentations below.

Team Anaya:

Team Blue:

Team Vidit:

CEL is NEN's ECell of the Month

2009-11-12T15:21:00.000+05:30

Team Epsilon collaborates with ISB, Hyderabad

2009-11-11T18:43:00.008+05:30

Well the unthinkable has finally happened. After more than a year of negotiations and discussions, the deal between CEL and ISB Hyderabad has finally been struck. According to it, the winners of Epsilon along with a couple of CEL members get a once in a lifetime opportunity to visit ISB and attend the very prestigious Global Social Ventures Competition there. This collaboration not only gives participants another incentive to participate in Epsilon but it also broadens their outlook and helps them achieve their dream of starting up successfully. Moreover, it is also being planned that an ISB Faculty member may be visiting BITS, Pilani in the near future to further induce the spirit of entrepreneurship amongst bitsians and to tell them about ISB in detail. In the coming years there is even a possibility of ISB conducting Video Conferencing Lectures on campus. So all in all this is a development that would go a long way in promoting exchanges and collaboration between the two institutes!!

The Sparks Course

2009-10-10T21:55:00.000+05:30

When I stepped into a new semester earlier this year, with apprehensions and fears of a tough and grueling academic year ahead, little was I aware of what was in store for the entrepreneurial part of me. Amidst a lot of skepticism and doubt, a new program was launched by BITSAA in collaboration with CEL, a program set to revolutionize the way BITSians approached technology based startups. Half way down the maiden version, the program has already garnered enough accolades and appreciation and is now arguably one of the best initiatives ever on campus to support budding new entrepreneurs.

My journey began this summer with a simple idea striking me under a circumstance of necessity. I spent quite some time thinking about how my life would be greatly simplified and much more cooler if I could get my solution implemented. I dreamed and had a fairly clear picture of the final product. And at once I thought, maybe I should take the plunge and get it implemented myself. I needed to start-up with the idea. But how?

That was exactly what Sparks New Ventures, a program jointly coordinated by Mr. Abhinav Khushraj and Prof. Arya Kumar and supported by several eminent personalities and alumni around the world, addressed. The graded course with a 3-unit weight chose 4-5 bright teams through a tough evaluation process, and mentored these teams extensively to develop their business plans. The deliverable of the course included a complete business plan, a well-crafted elevator pitch for our use as well as a full length pitch deck.

The course began with an introduction on the basic art of business plan writing by our very own beloved Abhinav. In the course of time, several eminent persons from across the world delivered lectures that helped us develop different sections of our plan and learn other issues related to startups. These included:

"Market Analysis & Segmentation" by Miss Prasanna Krishnan,

" Building the Startup Team" by Mr. Nickhil Jakatdar

" Competition" by Mr. Bob Meese

"Lean Startups" by Seph Skerritt

"Product Development" by Ajay Kulkani

"Business Models" by VT Bharadwaj

The major USP of the entire program is the individual mentoring each of the teams receive from able mentors allotted to them. The mentors work closely with team helping them work on different sections of the plan and ensure that the team works in the right direction. Our team personally benefited largely from these quality mentor talks and our relationship has certainly worked wonders in building up our plan.

With half a semester left in the program, several talks to happen and more mentor meets, we are certain our business plan would take on a more solid, concrete shape. At the end of the program, based on our performance, we may also be entitled to a seed fund amount funded by BITSAA that could serve as a great boost into launching our startup.

On the whole, this program has certainly set off to a great start, and shows great prospects for the future. It may well be responsible for churning out several successful technology startups from BITS Pilani in the near future. We all hope this happens and BITS Pilani becomes the next Stanford or MIT of India.

By Nikhil R

Naren Dubey talks on “Now that you have a Business Plan, What next?” at Conquest 2009

2009-08-14T13:30:00.000+05:30

About the Speaker:

Naren is an accomplished executive in building organizations and has extensively conducted business in the US and India. Most recently, he co-founded ScanCafe Inc; headquartered in the San Francisco bay area. Naren built ScanCafe from his garage with the objective of enabling people to relive their photographic and video based memories (past and present) by providing products and services that are powered by a creative workforce that serve as the customer's personal digital studio. ScanCafe won the CNN Money 2007 award for best quality and price in the US market and has been featured in the Oprah magazine and The Wall Street Journal. The company is well-funded and backed by venture capital from Sigma Partners in the silicon valley. ScanCafe has a 700 person creative fulfillment center in Whitefield, Bangalore.
Prior to founding ScanCafe, Naren spent a decade in various management roles in the microchip and solar panel industries. During his tenure in microelectronics, he worked at industry leaders like Applied Materials in Silicon Valley and at Moser Baer in New Delhi. Raised in Goa, India, Naren holds a B.E. from BITS, Pilani-Rajasthan, an MBA from the Wharton School of Business and a Ph.D. in Chemical Engineering from the University of Minnesota, Minneapolis, where he completed his dissertation in bio-artificial tissues and image processing of biopolymers using confocal laser scanning microscopy. He has been awarded patents in the areas of remote plasma generation and the magnetic shielding of plasmas. When he is not patenting things, Naren likes to paint mostly oil on canvas.

Description of the Talk:

“Be sure you want to be an entrepreneur before you take the plunge. It’s like building a beast, once you build it, you have to feed it.” Warned Mr. Naren Dubey while speaking on the topic, “Now that you have a Business Plan, What next?”

He charted out the growth of ScanCafe right from its birth, exposing all the opportunities and challenges they encountered.

He spoke on customer needs and how ScanCafe met them. He was quite frank in admitting that his company could not meet certain needs, like fast delivery of scanned photos.

He then explained to the audience how he used optimization to pinpoint the ideal price for the services being offered by ScanCafe. Low Prices are the biggest USP of ScanCafe now as it offers its services at prices which are a fourth of the prices being charged by its competitors.

He revealed that the biggest risk had to take was outsourcing to India. Even though surveys indicated that customers were not ready to have their photographs shipped all the way to India to have them scanned, the founders of ScanCafe decided to go ahead with India, due to the superior quality of manpower and lower wages. The gamble paid off and ScanCafe is growing at a very rapid pace now, all set to break even in a few months.

Speaking on another interesting problems he had to overcome, he said that ScanCafe initially had to Airlift photos in big cartons, which were mostly empty, just to ensure that not even one photograph is lost. "The devil is in the details." "You have to be paranoid about all the small details."

He concluded by advising the students that the best sources of market information are surveys conducted among friends and family. Inexpensive and modestly accurate.

Mahesh Murthy talks on "The Fundas of Starting Up" at Conquest 2009

2009-08-14T13:20:00.000+05:30

About the Speaker:

Mahesh is the Founder and CEO of Pinstorm. Mahesh has 24 years of marketing and communications experience of which over 14 years are in online marketing. After dropping out of college, Mahesh sold vacuum cleaners from door to door, worked with Grey in India and Ogilvy in Hong Kong, where he won notoriety and awards as a creative director on HP, The Economist, Pepsi and MTV - for whom he wrote and directed a spot voted Asia's best commercial of the decade. He then moved to a Silicon Valley firm, CKS Partners as Creative Director, General Manager and Partner where he helped launch the first commercial version of Yahoo in 1995 and the Earth's Biggest Bookstore campaign for Amazon.com in 1997. After a successful NASDAQ IPO, Mahesh moved to head marketing at iCat, an e-commerce firm in Seattle subsequently acquired by Intel. Mahesh then returned to India to run Channel V, a rival to MTV, till its sale to Newscorp in 2000 and then founded Passionfund to invest in startups. Some of his investees include Geodesic, Compassbox acquired by Careerlauncher, Cypherix, Indiaproperties, EBS and Webdunia. Mahesh penned a reasonably infamous column in Business Today and Businessworld, and played the Donald Trump-equivalent role in Business Baazigar, a game show similar to The Apprentice, involving entrepreneurs and business plans. While running search marketing campaigns for his favourite charity in 2003, Mahesh believed there was a need for a pay-for-performance online marketing company - and set up Pinstorm in Bombay. With over 120 people across 7 offices in India, Singapore, Malaysia, China, Europe and the US, Pinstorm is today among the worlds leading digital marketing firms. Mahesh has a passion for early-stage investing and teamed up with Pravin Gandhi and Bharati Jacob in 2006 to set up Seedfund, today a leading early-stage venture capital fund in India. Seedfund already has 10 investments, including Carwale.com, Printo, RedBus.in, AFAQs.com and Vaatsalya.

Description of the Talk:

“As I grew up, I always wanted to study in a place like this. Now I’m here to deliver a lecture.”Revealed Mr Mahesh Murthy while speaking on the topic “Fundas of Starting Up”.

“An entrepreneur is a person who realizes at a very early age that he or she is different. I don’t have to be like anyone else. Entrepreneurship is about living your DNA. I’m as different from you as my fingerprint is from yours.” He said while emphasizing on the uniqueness of each of those in the lecture hall, which was filled to capacity by then.

Through examples, he then proved that the location of a start-up doenst really matter anymore. He claimed that a world class company can be built in Pilani itself, the crowd broke into a huge round of applause to convey their agreement.

He then pointed out that world leading companies such as Google, Ferrari, YouTube and EBay never advertise. “The trick is to get your customer so thrilled, that he/she cannot stop talking about your service or product.”

While encouraging students to start-up early he said,” You don’t need to learn what it is like to be an employee to know what it is like to be an employer.”

He then downplayed the role of Venture Capital funding by pointing out that most of the world’s greatest entrepreneurs never received any such funds. The ultimate source of funds is the revenue developed from the customers, develop a good enough revenue model and your job is half done.

He concluded by stating that an entrepreneur leads a lonely life. It is emotionally very tough to be an entrepreneur because you might have to oppose your parents, your friends and almost everyone you know. He advised the students to have friends who share the same dream so they can get through the whole experience together. "A shared illusion"

Gayatri Rath talks on "Intrapreneurship and Women" at Conquest 2009

2009-08-14T13:15:00.000+05:30

About the Speaker:

Gayatri Rath is Vice President Communications at GE Capital and has been in this role since January 2009. In this role, Gayatri develops and implements internal and external communications strategies to increase brand awareness of GE Capital brand in India. Apart from being the communications leader, Gayatri is also the head of GE Women's Network at GE Capital India. Started in 1997, the GE Women's Network operates through 125 hubs in 39 countries and has a membership in excess of 100,000. It is a voluntary membership platform within GE that helps women employees deliver on their personal career goals and drive GE's business growth.
Gayatri has 14 years of experience in the public relations and corporate communications industry. In her previous assignment, Gayatri was Director - Corporate Communications at Oracle. During her 6-year stint at Oracle she worked closely with several managing directors and senior executives across many Asian countries.

Gayatri is a science graduate and a post graduate diploma holder in Journalism from Indian Institute of Mass Communications.

Description of the Talk:

“GE makes a lot of effort to make the environment conducive and comfortable for women to work in.”The charming Mrs Rath said while speaking on “Intrapreneurship and Women”. She revealed the strategy which GE uses to encourage diversity in its workforce. The entire workforce is divided into groups of diversity and conditions are tailored to suit the specific needs of each of the groups.

“Diversity is good.”

She informed that after studying two companies, one with no women employees and the other with a significant number of women employees, the following statistics came to light, with regards to the company with women employees:

· 35 % higher return on market equity

· 34% higher return to shareholders

She then compared women and men employees, exploring both the positives and the negatives of both the sexes. It is this very critical understanding which enables GE to handle its employees in the best possible manner.

She then spoke about importance of mentors, stating “You should spend 70% of your time doing your present job and the other 30% preparing for the next. It is the mentor who will help you make that shift.”

She concluded by stating how being from a small town background helped her bring more diversity to her company and diversity is good. :)

Shashikanth Khandelwal talks on "Starting up after College" at Conquest 2009

2009-08-14T13:07:00.000+05:30

About the Speaker:

Shashikant is a Founding Member and Chief Architect at TheFind Inc, a startup in shopping search with more than 15 million visitors per month. At TheFind, Shashikant has been involved in venture funding, product innovation (5 patents pending), and building a scalable search engine. He recruited a team to solve hard problems in information extraction using machine learning, and has played a crucial role in traffic growth and revenue optimization.

Shashikant also co-founded BITSEmbryo along with his 1997 batch BITSian classmates, and led the team from idea inception to building an Embryo Club on campus to run this project. In 2 years, Embryo has conducted 80 lectures via video-conferencing, some of them simultaneously across Pilani, Goa and Dubai campuses with an attendance of over 500 students.

Prior to TheFind, Shashikant worked at INSEAD France for a year. Shashikant has a BE(Hons) Computers Science from BITS Pilani and an MS in Computer Science from Stanford University. He is an active member of BITSAA.

Description of The Talk:

Shasikanth, speaking from the United States, in a online lecture setup by the embryo group of BITS Pilani, started off by speaking about dreams. “Dream and dream big” he said, while illustrating how he started his first big venture. He smoothly shifted to talking about the importance of knowledge, “Knowledge is Power.”, he quoted the slogan of BITS Pilani. He also informed the audience that knowledge could also be dangerous sometimes, as knowing how hard it is to do something , could dissuade one from even trying- “Ignorance is bliss”.

He revealed to the audience that the best way to learn entrepreneurship is to “Just do it.”Experience counts and entrepreneurs need to be bold enough to “Just do it.”

He then spoke about the need for mentors in our lives. The mentors could be anybody, our teachers, our friends, our seniors or just anybody who does something we want to do.

“You can be sure that there are many others who are as smart as you. However, if you work for one hour more everyday, it equals thirthy hours in a month and that is a lot of time. Hard work is the only thing which can make you stand out.” He quoted his mentor, Chandra Bhople.

He ended the talk by stressing on the importance of friends. He revealed that most of the people he is working with have been his friends for years. “A group of people will know a lot more people and have a lot more experience than one person could ever hope to have”, he said.

Gaurav Mishra on Entrepreneurship

2009-08-12T14:35:00.000+05:30

Gaurav Mishra Talk on Entrepreneurship at Conquest BITS Pilani 100809

View more documents from Gaurav Mishra.

Gaurav gave a talk on What Entrepreneurs can learn from Activists to a hall packed with over 250 people this Conquest. Here is the ppt of the talk.

Four big reasons not to miss Conquest 2009

2009-08-05T23:27:00.001+05:30

Things are heating up in the CEL room as we get closer to the Conquest weekend. This happens to be my fourth Conquest and I'm even more excited than my first Conquest in 2006.

Everybody is working hard to ensure the judges, participants, speakers and attendees have the best experience possible.

A major focus of Conquest has always been to be a platform for discussions and talks on entrepreneurship. We have a fantastic line up of speakers and the two days are packed with sessions. Anybody reading this should certainly think about coming down to Pilani! Its only 4 hours from Delhi or Jaipur and will be very much worth it.

Here are few of the sessions that I'm personally excited about:

1. Ajit Ranade on recent government policies that have created opportunities for entrepreneurs.

Mr. Ranade is an economics rock star and in this keynote I expect to learn about new possibilities for public-private partnerships and hopefully some specific thoughts on the energy sector.

2. Mahesh Murthy on fundaes of starting up.

Mahesh Murthy is a personal hero of mine for being a completely self-made person. Droping out of college, running the Amazon marketing campaign to coining the Pepsi's 'Yeh pyaas hai badi' slogan, his story is stuff of legends. A must attend for budding entrepreneurs!

3. A panel of VCs from Sequoia, Bluestream and Helion VC will discuss upcoming market opportunities in India. I think this session will inspire a lot of people who are looking for sectors to startup in. I'm convincing all first year juniors (who've landed in Pilani, barely a week back) to attend this one.

4. Gaurav Mishra on learning from activists. I first heard Gaurav Mishra on social media at the Grassroutes orientation and I can't wait to hear his ideas on marketing inspired from social activists.

So these are four big reasons not to miss Conquest 2009.

Dose of Gauravonomics this Conquest

2009-08-04T17:58:00.000+05:30

We just confirmed another speaker for this year's Conquest. And it's a biggie.

Gaurav Mishra will be coming down to Pilani to give a talk on What Entrepreneurs can learn from activists during this year's Conquest.

Do have a look at Gaurav's blog.

In the past Gaurav has been, as he puts it, an overpaid car salesman after which he became a Yahoo! Fellow in International Values and Communication Technology and this resulted in him teaching Social Media at Georgetown University. After a lot of fun in US, he came back to India and came up with two initiatives, Vote Report India and a startup, 2020 Web Tech.

Gaurav writes extensively on anti consumerism (as was evident in his off consumption blog), social media, online activism.

But this is just the gist of it, the complete bio can be found here

Conquest: Our Finalists

2009-07-31T16:15:00.000+05:30

Conquest began its campaign in March 2009 by inviting abstracts of business ideas from universities and corporates across the globes. We had a tremendous response with over 300 entries which were screened down to 33. The 33 teams submitted complete business plans to compete for the Conquest Trophy. After several rounds of scrutiny and evaluation by our panel of judges, six teams were selected as finalists of Conquest 2009. What followed was a 45 day mentoring period where our finalists where mapped to mentors to help them shape their plans better.

Five months after the process began, Conquest is now approaching its pinnacle with the 6 teams about to the fight out the last lap on campus at BITS Pilani. Here's a sneak-peak into our finalists:

SolarCycle - Brown University, Rhode Island
Solar Cycle began in 2008 in response to the staggering environmental damage and negative health effects caused by contaminated drinking water and indoor air pollution in the developing world. SolarCycle produces durable, sustainable, and financially accessible solar cookers and water pasteurizers to turn an urban trash problem into a potential solution for diarrheal illnesses and respiratory diseases.

F Active Solutions- IIT, Rourkee
F Active Solutions proposes to provide International Financial Reporting Standards (IFRSs) implementation and maintenance services to domestic and overseas (outsourcing) markets.The long term plan of F Active Solutions is to evolve as a complete financial house providing all services to its clients in synergy under one roof.

Build India- Shailesh J Mehta School of Management
Build India is a labor training management institute that will provide quality training to unskilled and semi-skilled laborers in the infrastructure sector.These laborers will be provided training for different trades which will help them work as skilled laborers. The training will be provided with a great emphasis on quality and standards.

Alchemy- National Institute of Industrial Engineering (NITIE)
Alchemy aims to gather valuable metals like Gold, Aluminium, Copper, Palladium, Tin etc. from the e-waste in an eco friendly manner. Their initiative is to aim at reducing the accumulation of used and discarded electronic and electrical equipments, which mostly end up in landfills or partly recycled in a unhygienic conditions by backyard recyclers and then partly thrown into waste streams damaging the environment. The objective of Alchemy is to create an opportunity to transfer waste into socially and industrially beneficial raw material using simple, low cost, home grown, environmental friendly technology.

Genie - BITS Pilani
Genie began in March 2008 and categorizes its services as mobile based location based services. GENIE is designed to provide its customers with a mobile environment which can satisfy all their location specific needs. GENIE provides its customers with an application which informs, entertains, and allows its users to locate discover valuable location sensitive information as well as a peace of mind.With GENIE you can search, review, locate, organize routes and navigate through the fastest route (taking least time) so you reach faster.

e-Social Marketplace- ISB Hyderabad & IIM Bangalore
The e-Social Marketplace would be an online platform that acts as a one-stop-shop to connect nonprofit organizations in the United States to its potential donors. It aims to improve quality, transparency, access and utility of information about nonprofit performance, social impact and donor behavior and also provide certain value-added services to the donors. This is a for-profit venture focusing on the nonprofit sector.

StartUp Showcase

2009-07-29T14:39:00.000+05:30

Our exciting new addition to Conquest this year is StartUp Showcase. Conceptualized by a group of CELites over coffee, StartUp Showcase promises to be a one of its kind exhibition of startups that are creating ripples across the country.

Unlike most other showcases, StartUp Showcase would host only 4 budding startups, ensuring maximum impact of the firms on the audience. We are glad to have representation from all corners of the nation, with GreenOBin from Delhi, Voice Pitara from Ahmedabad, One Billion Minds from Kolkata and RangDe from Chennai comfirming their participation.

It all started with the putting up of a website and massive online publicity by the members of CEL. Within weeks, we had several responses from startups all over India. Following rounds of evaluations based on the startup's idea and appeal, 4 best ones were selected.

The showcase would involve stalls at the Conquest venue for the teams to display their efforts as well as special closed door pitching sessions with all VCs present. The event would also have an open-door pitching in the Lecture Theatre Complex of BITS Pilani to inspire the audience.

We at CEL hope to have a wonderful maiden edition of StartUp Showcase and are working towards it.

Follow us on Twitter for more updates @conquest2009

Conquest 2009 Grand Finale

2009-07-28T15:52:00.000+05:30

Members of the Center for Entrpreneurial Leadership at BITS Pilani are bustling with activity. Having arrived on campus close to a week in advance of reopening, we are gearing up to host the biggest ever finale with lots of intersting additions.

Conquest had got off to a swift start with over 300 entries of business plans from 4 different continents. After gruelling rounds of evaluation and personal mentoring by our unique panel of mentors, Conquest would now winess the confluence of 5 budding finalists together with a host of eloquent speakers and a few added specialties.

Our list of speakers includes

Ajit Ranade from Aditya Birla Group
Mahesh Murthy from Pinstorm
Raj Gollamudi from Blue Stream Ventures
Prajakt Raut from Orange Cross
Naren Dubey from Scan Cafe
Shashikant Khandelwal from Thefind Inc
Gayathri Rath from GE Capital.

As an additive attraction to Conquest, CEL is hosting StartUp Showcase that would showcase 4 budding Indian StartUps, currently creating ripples in the ecosystem, to the Conquest audience. Our final list of StartUps covers the four corners of Indian map:

GreenOBin from Delhi
Voice Pitara from Ahmedabad
One Billion Minds from Kolkata
RangDe from Chennai

We are hoping to have a great showcase from these startups who would certainly inspire the BITSian population to startup and create value to the society.

The CEL student team is all eager to organize this one of its kind Business fiesta for the audience at BITS Pilani.

Conquest 2009 Finalists

2009-06-24T10:18:00.000+05:30

It gives us great pleasure to announce the finalists of Conquest 2009.

The finalists are (in alphabetical order of team names)

Alchemy (NITIE, Mumbai)
Build India (Shailesh J. Mehta School of Management, IIT Bombay)
e-Social Marketplace (Indian School of Business, Hyderabad and IIM)
F Active Solutions Pvt Ltd (IIT Roorkee)
SolarCycle (Brown University, RI, USA)

The waitlisted teams are

Ability (International Space University, Strasbourg,France)
Light Choupal (IIT Madras)
Vermpet (Indira Gandhi Institute of Technology, GGSIPU, Delhi)

We are eagerly waiting to see the finalists at BITS Pilani during the Conquest Finale on 8th and 9th of August 2009.

StartUp Showcase

2009-06-13T18:45:00.000+05:30

Center for Entrepreneurial Leadership at BITS Pilani is coming up with yet another initiative in its endeavor to promote start ups and instill the culture on campus. To be held during the finals of Conquest 2009, the international business challenge organized by the center, StartUp Showcase aims at showcasing four of India’s best startups to the audience on campus at BITS Pilani.

Conquest 2009, in its sixth edition has received over 200 entries of business plans from four continents and is all set to have grand finale on 8th & 9th August, 2009. The event will witness the confluence of several entrepreneurs, venture capitalists, BITS alumni, Conquest finalists and over 4000 bright young minds from BITS Pilani.

Several venture capitalists like Mahesh Murthy from Pinstorm, Raj Gollamudi from BlueStream Ventures, Prajakt Raut from Indus Medinet Ventures and Abhishek Goyal from Accel have already confirmed their presence and the list is expected to increase in coming days.

StartUp Showcase would prove to be the perfect platform for a startup to accelerate. The selected few startups would get an opportunity to maintain an exhibit stall on both days of the event, give a public presentation about their firm as well as get an exclusive chance to interact with the VCs present. With heavy press coverage, the startups are sure to get publicity for their firms, apart form opportunities to recruit some the best brains as employees or interns.

If you own a startup and would like to participate, just register with us on our official website http://www.celbits.org/conquest/startupshowcase. You could potentially find your next investor, great customers or bright recruits for your firm at StartUp Showcase ’09.

Mantra Shortlist Announced

2009-04-24T14:43:00.001+05:30

We are very happy to announce that the shortlist for the Mantra Awards are out. Hearty congratulations to all those who made it. We shall intimate you of your interview slots shortly. The list is random.

Social Leadership

Rahul Borkar 2006A3PS195
Ravi Teja 2006C6PS599
P.Tejaswini 2006B3A3543
Badave Akash Sharadchandra 2006B1A3771
Thota Sailesh 2006A8PS297

Entrepreneurship

Sahil Challana 2006C6PS294
Abhsishek Syal 2006A8PS227
Lohit Sahu 2005A4PS226
Mahesh Jhakotia 2006B3A8412
Anchit Duggal 2006A8PS257
M.Santosh Lakshman 2005A3PS118

Innovator

Sumit M. Gangrade 2007H146434
Rajat Tibrewal 2006B5A7472
Kummaraganti S Manish 2006A3PS070
Shantan Kajjam 2005B5A8518
Yash Gupta 2006A4PS252
Vaibhav Soni 2005B3A3464

Trail Blazer

Antonio de Lima Fernandes Rohit 2007A3PS182
Anurag Dutta 2006A7PS010
Abhijeet Kamath 2006A7PS094
Mayank Mathur 2006A8PS239
Akhil Sharma 2005B1A4585

A big thank you to all those who applied. We wish you all the best in life.

Idea Café

2009-04-17T13:26:00.000+05:30

With a bad placement scenario and fewer existing opportunities, maybe its time you give your idea a try. You never know, it can turn out to be the next big start-up.

We, at Center for Entrepreneurial leadership, are giving you a platform to discuss your ideas, brainstorm for new ones and find people interested in them so that you can float your own enterprise. Mr.Pradeep Sethi, a successful entrepreneur and a distinguished alumnus of BITS-Pilani will be guiding you through the Idea Café session.

The best idea gets a direct entry to the semi-final round of Conquest 2009.

Date: 18th April, Saturday

Time: 4pm

Venue: ET (2220)

You don’t necessarily need to have an idea to be at Idea Café. With all the other ideas floating around, we are sure you’ll hit on something of your own.

P.S recommended for those interested in Sparks New ventures, a new elective being offered for the next semester

Splendid Opportunities

2009-04-15T18:38:00.000+05:30

The Center for Entrepreneurial Leadership has worked very hard to bring to you the following. Please make the most of them.

Sparks New Ventures : A New Project Type Course next semester
Mantra Awards : Awards to recognize BITS Pilani students for being leaders (Imp: Deadline extended till 2359 hours, 18th April. Apply asap)
Summer in A Startup : Intern in a hot startup this summer.

In case of queries contact me at +91 97844 61853.

Sparks New Ventures: Application Process

2009-04-12T13:46:00.000+05:30

The application process for Sparks New Ventures is now up. Major updates are

Details about what to include in the essay
A FAQs file to answer common queries
The course is going to be a Project Type Course
Applicants need to send their applications to 3 email IDs
Uploaded the slide deck and audio clips used during the Info Session on 1oth Apr.

Please download the following files for the complete information. For people inside the BITS Pilani Intranet, please click on the Intranet Link for faster download.

You can download these files from jet's DC++ Hub [172.16.10.74]. User : NOTA. Search for Sparks directory.

For any clarifications, write to me at rachit at celbits dot org or talk to me at 97844 61853.

SparkS New Venture : A Course on Offer

2009-04-11T00:05:00.000+05:30

The Center for Entrepreneurial Leadership is pleased to a announce a new course that'll be offered as Project Type Course : Sparks New Ventures next semester (Aug -Dec 2009) in collaboration with BITSAA International and EDIPRU.

It is a unique course in terms of the pedagogy that invloves leading entrepreneurs, VCs, academicians rom across the globe as speakers, mentors,judges and brings them into the classroom. The top Business Plans that come out of the course will receive seed funding and mentoring beyond the semester

It aims to let students

* Practice entrepreneurship
* Create a technology based startup
* Write business plan including all building blocks
* Attend guest lectures from entrepreneurs, investors and academicians
* Receive mentoring from an experienced professional
* Be eligible for seed funding to pursue idea beyond the semester

The lectures would be taken by speakers like

*Nickhil Jakatdar
*Satish Gupta
*Diaz Nesamoney
*Anurag Jain
*Anand Daniel

The confirmed mentors include

* Prasanna Krishnan, Associate, DFJ
* VT Bharadwaj, Vice President, Sequoia Capital
* Rahul Chandra, Director, Helion Venture Partners
* Abhinav Khushraj, Strategy & Biz Dev Mgt, Nokia

You (BITS Pilani students who would be on-campus during Aug-Dec 2009) have to apply to this course before 2359 hours, 19th April 2009.Only selected people will be able to register for this.

You can either apply alone or in teams of 3-5. You should write an essay(in less than 500 words) which talks about the following

* Entrepreneurship goals (Why entrepreneurship?)
* Entrepreneurship efforts to date (e.g. startup, CEL)
* Describe up to 2 business ideas you would like to pursue

In case you are applying as a team, each member of the team should apply individually.However, please mention the names and ID numbers of your team mates at the top.

The name of the file containing the essay should be .pdf (eg 2006A7PS012.pdf).

Mail your essays to Prof. Arya Kumar and Abhinav Khushraj at all these e mail IDs before the deadline.

aryakumar at bits hyphen pilani dot ac dot in
aryakum at gmail dot com
akhushraj at bitsaa dot org

For queries, call Rachit Chandra at +91 97844 61853 or Karteek Addanki at +91 97729 74577

An Exciting Prospect

2009-04-06T20:48:00.000+05:30

To add to the long list of awe – inspiring BITsian start-up tales , heres another one - Cube Inc. ,India ; and the guy behind it……?

Neeraj Agarwal (a second year undergraduate student of BITS Pilani) . He is the cofounder (along with Arvind Singh Gulati-a fourth year student ) and chief software architect , Cube inc. , a start-up based on providing extremely affordable web solutions to clients . The start of his journey was in one of the most conventional ways - freelancing in the summer break right after his first year at BITS , in Web and Desktop applications ; but the eventual growth has been sharp and steady with Cube making more than INR.6 lacs within just five months of his founding since November 2008.

A complete computer geek himself(as he claims…!) , his love for gadgets has lead him to work on ‘HOBOT’, a home robot which boasts of superior programming in Java . He is on a lookout for hardware partners for the same .The latest project up his sleeve has been a recent web application he designed for Apple ; n that is not all …………he also gave a shot to designing a content management system (CMS) called Joomla , that so far has earned him about 20k in just 2 months…!!!.

And how does he balance all that he has laid his hands on, with acads (maintaining a decent 6.8…..!!!) ..??? ” I spend around 3-4 hours a day and the whole of Sundays and holidays on Cube…….” , is what he has to say ……..amazing dedication…!!!

Future plans….??? Along with Arvind ,he plans to set up an office this summer for Cube Inc. at Ghaziabad which is planned to be the head office for future projects .

Parampara: Looking Forward

2009-02-21T23:06:00.000+05:30

On 16^th Feb, Tuesday, the Parampara(RED) team sat down in ANC to discuss two major ideas that it has been working on for the past one month, and finally, it seemed that RED is back in full swing after a very long time, maybe a semester. The team, now on a nine member high, which includes, Mohseen (Project Lead), Pratyusha, Yashasvi, Aaksha, Sachin B. and Sachin S., Sumant (Vice Prez), Shailesh (Vice Prez), Eshaan and Aniket.

RED, a project of CEL more elaborately, Rural Entrepreneurial Development Project, had been speculating and working of different ideas which included Mushroom cultivation as a rural co-operative (which failed in the weather conditions prevalent in nearby areas, but the idea has been actively pursued by Sumant and has manifested itself into a startup plan), manufacturing dustless chalk to sell in the very large and ready market of BITS, BET classrooms, and finally, the setting up and initiation of a Biogas movement in and near Pilani.

Towards the end of the previous semester, an angel named Mr. Kalyan Paul spoke to Shailesh about the idea of creating a Biogas revolution starting from BITS which would be a great exercise in renewable energy development in addition to being a rural development initiative. Kalyan Paul is an alumni of BITS who has taken to social work and runs an organization called Grassroots operating mainly in hilly areas of Ranikhet, to improve the quality of life of the rural people. His interest and knowledge in Biogas has inspired us to consider a construction of a Biogas Plant for the BITS Dairy as a start and exercise to understand the technology behind construction and to develop a set of five-six people trained enough to replicate the plants in future. The vision is long term and the idea far-thought. The first step, basically aimed at being an experience in Biogas plant technology is an attempt to help the dairy cooperative diversify its product line with the help of additional energy availability. The team is currently in the process of planning out funds, claiming subsidies, and organizing its trip to Ranikhet during march when we will take along with us some professional help for building the plant after having seen off-hand the work being done by Grassroots.

Another idea that has recently caught the team's attention is about helping a group of 6-10 women and more, earn a livelihood out of stitching clothes (kurtas, currently) and selling them in the nearby Pilani market. An organization called Nirmaan, operating as a student organization in BITS has successfully managed almost 10 women to get trained in stitching and they have developed a decent efficiency in that regard. The work at this stage involves understanding what makes their product sub-standard in the market, trying to improve upon the quality with available skill-sets and finding a consistent market so that a sustainable source of income is created out of this occupation.

So for now, the team is fully active, and looking at a great semester ahead.

Lessons on Entrepreneurship from Kavikrut

2009-02-09T02:35:00.000+05:30

As a part of e-week celebrations, organised by CEL,BITS Pilani ,a workshop on Social entrepreneurship was successfully held on campus in association with Nirmaan on the 8th of February. Kavikrut, alumnus of BITS and an entrepreneur himself brought the Bitsian junta face-to-face with the reality of an entrepreneur's life through his lecture. His start-up venture Mobile Medics Healthcare Limited, winner of Conquest 2007(CEL’s flagship event) & Global Social Venture competition, New York, aims at providing high-quality, affordable, primary healthcare to affluent villages of rural India.
With $30,000 mustered from b-plan competitions, he started his venture spanning 11 villages, a population of 40,000 treating 1800+ patients so far...
Giving a sneak peek into his journey, he cited challenges he faced, reflecting on how he had to build trust brick by brick (the trust already shaken by some "promised" govt schemes that never materialised...!) and the working conditions weren’t exactly the best either (Ok...now no doctor would be very keen on working in a place as remote as Pilani with its scorching summers and electricity crisis). Identifying the essential needs of people and getting them to pay for their services added to the hurdles.
More so, branding i.e. drawing rural public to a certain "Mobile Medics" rather than their trusted doctors was another issue ("Lux obviously sells more than Lifebuoy.....!").
With that overdose of challenges came some solutions and suggestions as well. "There is no Bharat Matrimony for entrepreneurship" he remarked, when asked about his take on the trick to finding like-minded people to work with. He stressed on the importance of reality checks and self motivation "You ll have to find an antidote for decreasing self motivation" he said. One line to sum it all up for budding entrepreneurs?

"Dive, but ensure the water is deep enough!"

Running for a cause

2009-02-09T00:45:00.000+05:30

Birla Institute of Technology and Science, Pilani might be situated on the shifting fringes of the Thar Desert. But, the vision of Shri GD Birlaji and subsequent efforts have resulted in BITS Pilani campus being a lush green campus.

So, the Center for Entrepreneurial Leadership (CEL) held a run through the less frequented parts of the campus to increase awareness about not only being closer to nature but also how to stay green for maximal returns in business.

Senior faculty members including Prof Arya Kumar ( the Chief of Entrepreneurship Development and Intellectual Property Rights Unit at BITS Pilani), two Deans also participated in the event.

A modest running field of about 50 were encouraged and egged upon by their supporters and spectators.

As I am penning this down, the second session by Mr Sunil Handa on Entrepreneurship is on as a part of two day long Workshop on Entrepreneurship.

He was worth Rs 600 crores when he started teaching at IIM Ahemdabad! He enthusiastically telling me "Tum toh CEL wale ho, dhanda karna, logon ko naukri dena!" (You being from CEL should definitely start-up, be a job provider) shall always remain with me.

The Lecture by Mr Sunil Handa

2009-02-08T00:57:00.000+05:30

Followed by the inauguration of eweek by CEL and Nirmaan was the
Social Entrepreneurial Workshop. A welcome speech for the Chief
Guests, a video- Refulgence a social B plan competition, and finally
the workshop by Mr Sunil Handa.
Mr Sunil Handa is a professor from IIM Ahmedabad and has been teaching
there for 17 years. An ex BITSian, he is a very strict person as
evident from the fact that he took the chief guest's phone away. Mr
Handa started off with a story of his student Narendra and went on to
speak about his allergies and his interests. He is a very open speaker
giving straightforward opinions about everything. Hindi dominated most
of his talk, and so were his jokes. The element of humour of the
session was enhanced by his constant serious expressions. The audience
was impressed on hearing that he came up with the name OASIS and the
story behind it.
Mr Handa had various stories for the audience from politics to
academics and had morals in them. He believes that a person must never
give up, believe in yourself and to be an opportunist. Mr. Handa
explained about his role in ADR and politics.
Finally he was very strict about his schedule and thus an abrupt
ending to the session. There is another session on tomorrow, 8th Feb.

Entrepreneurship Week Inaugaration

2009-02-07T23:41:00.000+05:30

“When the going gets tough, entrepreneurs get going.” Said Prof. B.R.Natarajan , Dean, Distance Learning Division, BITS-Pilani, at the inauguration ceremony for the Entrepreneurship Week being organized by the Centre for Entrepreneurial Leadership(CEL), BITS-Pilani from 7th February to 15th February. E Week is being celebrated across the country in 400 colleges and with 2,00,000 students taking part, it is the gala celebration of the spirit of entrepreneurship.
The Entrepreneurship Week themed “Go Green: The World is our Business” at BITS-Pilani was kick started by reputed names from the field of entrepreneurship and the students of BITS-Pilani. Advising the students on the attitude required by entrepreneurs to survive in the current scenario, Prof. Arya Kumar, Faculty Advisor of CEL, told the students to “Think Big, Dream Big and Break New Frontiers.” Also present to grace the occasion was Professor Sunil Handa, alumnus of BITS-Pilani and presently a professor at IIM Ahmedabad, who has immense experience in the field of social entrepreneurship and also founded the Eklavya Educational Foundation. V.K. Desai, the founder of Tiny Tech Plans who is spear heading the social entrepreneurship movement in the country was present along with Kavikrut, an alumnus of BITS-Pilani and founder of mobile medics. These dignitaries are here to conduct a workshop on Social Entrepreneurship. They were impressed with the enthusiasm of the students and thus encouraged them to take up entrepreneurship. They further pointed out that this was probably the best time to start-up, advising the students to consider the global meltdown as an opportunity. A crowd of over two hundred students and faculty members also pledged to support entrepreneurship and make it a way of life.
The week will host a variety of events, including a marathon to show commitment for a cleaner and greener environment. Other events include online lecture sessions, movie screenings, debates, blogging, mobile videos and a t-shirt designing competition. The final round of the intra-Bits idea competition ‘Epsilon’, also organized by CEL, has been scheduled to take place on the final day of the week. The week promises to be an enriching experience for both the students and the faculty.

The Bain Talk

2009-01-30T11:40:00.000+05:30

In the thick of the sad placement scenario this semester, Mr. Amit Sinha, a Principal at Bain and Company gave a talk on "Why Start Up Amidst this Economic Meltdown?" today. A modest number of E-enthusiasts including CELites and non-CELites attended the session.

Mr. Sinha, a pro at start-up consultancy explored the various aspects of executing a business plan as a whole from ideating to sustainability to improvisation of the idea for making a start-up into a major business venture. Beginning with the social stigma attached with starting up like parental pressure and financial vulnerability, he went on to stress on the importance of team composition, dedication, faith in the concept and foreseeing the risks involved in a start up. Sharing his own experiences with budding and successful entrepreneurs, he came to the conclusion that an idea only contributes 20% of the success of a start up, the remaining 80% being execution. He also acknowledged the concept of promoting ideation via platforms like "Epsilon" and "Conquest" asserting how the competitions are playing a major role in promoting entrepreneurship.

He also touched the developing nature of the Indian Venture capitalist market and the immature nature of the economy in various sectors. Comparing it with the present US market, he said India still has a lot more to offer than the economies of many developed nations. Being a US return himself, he reassured the faith of the students in the Indian Economy calling it one of unimaginable potential.

Addressing the aspirations of each member of the audience personally and giving them a brilliant insight in the world of start-ups, the enlightened audience dispersed with a sense of purpose as they went on to their usual technological education.

EPSILON updated

2009-01-12T12:32:00.000+05:30

EPSILON.The transition from zero to infinity.From an idea to a business plan.
And this transition is a story in itself -wonderful to watch and absolutely brilliant to be a part of.
The annual intrabits business idea competition got off to an amazing start last september.
The publicity was amazing...from a promotional video and its own spoof(which was much more appealing :)) to the many posters that came out nearly every
third day,from having lennon's picture in one of them..to the one saying "do u want yet another
poster?"!
Hilarious,interesting and creative..but most important of all-it created a huge buzz among the junta which resonated brilliantly in the record number of entries we got this year.
The first BPW by Mr. P.K.Padi saw a jampacked lecture hall.We also had some very good bpws by Mr Prajakt Raut(Founder,TIE) and Mr L.Desouza,Dean (academics),ISB.
The judging has been done in two rounds to shortlist the finalists (the results of the second phase are just around the corner-so tighten your seatbelts folks!!)

The finals have been scheduled for february the 14th,as the finale to the E-Week celebrations (and not because of any other traditions being followed on that date:)).
This is the first week of a new semester and its pretty amazing the way the team is working on it right now..the pitch is feverish,the days are closing in..its started to feel a bit crazy already but yes..the stage is being set for a very interesting event:)..
from zero to infinity!

2 BITS Pilani Entrepreneurs on MTV Youth Icon

2008-10-29T15:00:00.000+05:30

It is a pleasure to be back to serious blogging after such a long break. I promise, dear E-Factor, that I would not neglect you and not take away your name (not yet).

This post is triggered by the euphoria that is prevailing at the Center for Entrepreneurial Leadership, BITS Pilani right now. The Pepsi MTV Youth Icon has released 23 of the 30 nominees for this year's award.

We have 2 BITS Pilani alumni on it. And the reason for euphoria at CEL is the fact that both of them are entrepreneurs!

Siva Prasad [BITS Pilani+ IIM Kozhikode] is the founder of dhanaX, a micro finance based start-up. I have always loved the concept of Social Lending pioneered by them. And you know what? Abhishek Nayak, our very own CEL Anna, has worked with him in the past. And you know what? I would not be surprised if I see Nayak on that nominee list very soon.

Vote for Siva Prasad here

Sarath Babu [BITS Pilani + IIM Ahmedabad] is the founder of Food King and with healthy balance sheets is on the way to become a literal King in the organized food business. His story started selling idlis with his mother in Chennai before a Chemical engineering degree from BITS Pilani opened new vistas.

Vote for Sarath Babu here

Wish both of you all the best from everyone at BITS Pilani!

An interesting observation was the number of start-up people (like Natasha of Mama Mia) and social activists (Vishal of Dream a Dream or Devika of Mumbai Mobile Creches) on the list. I hope it means as a society we have more meaningful icons to look up to. Amen!

Aspire

2008-09-29T05:43:00.001+05:30

When I was handed over responsibility for Aspire, CEL's international newsletter , I was told that this idea was on the shelves for quite some time but somehow it was never executed. Jinxed(?!). A month after I took up the responsibility, the whole newsletter started stagnating and now its finally seeing the other end of the tunnel.

I'm happy to announce that the first ever issue of Aspire will be ready to be mailed to CEL Alumni, Investors, Students and Faculty within a shorter time span than a month. Or how about a more realistic target? Before Oasis.

EFactor moves outside the web

2008-09-25T11:08:00.000+05:30

EFactor, the center's blog, has now evolved into a mega confluence of entrepreneurs, investors, professionals and students; a day long business conference with over 80 delegates from VC Firms, start-ups, industries and academia and over 500 paying attendees. To be held on 7th February, 2008 at The Taj Palace, New Delhi, the business conference is slated to be the largest student run event in Asia.

This blog would henceforth contain frequent updates regarding the conference and articles in connection with the motive behind the conference.

Visit the official website for further details.

Find problems, Solve them

2008-09-24T10:49:00.000+05:30

Identifying problems is a key to building successful businesses. A lot of times simply “replicating” a model elsewhere doesn’t quite work. Demographics for instance play a crucial role. One of the most successful starts to come out of Pilani city was Mobile Medics (later acquired by Nicholas Piramal) founded by a BITS Pilani team.

Mobile Medics was essentially a private health care system that would compliment the existing government infrastructure. A van equipped with testing equipment and drug supplies would carry a doctor and nurse and reach the villages in the operation radius. They plan to charge each patient Rs.50 ($1.25) as consultation fees. The system is modeled as “treatment at doorstep”, saving the villager from the long and cumbersome journey to the major hospitals.

A couple of months ago my father told me that a student wanted to do something which sounded very much like mobile medics in Hyderabad and had consulted him regarding that. A mobile medics like start-up is most likely suited with a rural backdrop in mind, one where there is no health care for miles and hence transport becomes a burden. Doing it in a city isn’t quite feasible especially taking into account the running costs as well as sustainability.

Looking around my hostel, I can think of so many businesses germinating with the simple idea of solving problems. Take BITS for example, the entire campus houses around 4000 students and the major eating joint is around 500 meters from almost every hostel. And students are lazy. Now, an effective business that could spring up here is room delivery. Every restaurant might not be able to employ workers especially for delivery purposes. However, if another new venture was established; one which provided room delivery and had tie ups with every restaurant in Pilani (or at least many of them), this could solve a lot of problems. Generating employment, revenues flowing in are just some of the offshoots, but the major reason for all this is because you are providing a service to people which is really useful to them.

Find problems, solve them.

Foreign Maal!

2008-06-03T04:07:00.000+05:30

Cross posted on WATBlog ,Desicritics and Whatever Things

I was going through Indianroomates.in, a website quite similar to its American counterpart Roomates.com which aims to help and connect (mostly) the youth seeking accommodation. One thing that really caught my attention was the picture of Indian youth on the homepage. As bizarre as it may sound, when was the last time you saw a non-NGO Indian website which had Indian faces? At the most it might have the token Indian or Black person to show diversity, but I think it’s quite rare to find only Indian people. In the beginning I felt maybe such a strategy is employed to show that that company is global (or at least aspiring to be global) but now it just seems like everyone is following the crowd. But then what about those companies which are purely based in India and don’t seem to be expanding outside India in the likely future. I say this because couple of the web based start ups that launched from my college and had noting to do with foreign clients had picture of Caucasian women playing with their Caucasian kids. It just doesn’t make sense. Why should a premier IIT-JEE (Not too tough to guess which one now) coaching institute which receives over a crore hits every year need to put a header picture of some American university students on its website? I don’t know where the problem lies. Is it that the companies ask the web designing team to put in those pictures (in case the work is being outsourced) or the company itself feels its needs such a picture. The whole point being that if your pictures don’t gel with your venture, you end up looking really stupid.

By the way it was really disappointing to see that the moment I clicked on a page at Indianroomates, it took me to another page. And this one had phirangs on it, smiling.

Here’s one solution. The issue of portraying yourself as something doesn’t need faces. It can be done through symbols as well. If you’re ashamed of putting in Indian people shaking hands (though I don’t know why that would be the case), then might as well show only the shaking of hands on your webpage rather than show a Chinese and a Kenyan doing so, especially if you’re a start up based in a small town whose main market is the nearby city.

Updated:

Another solution that comes to my mind, and Proto.in founder Vijay Anand also talks about it, is the establishment of an Indian photo stock. This is a terrific business opportunity for this market is currently untapped. There is a huge demand for Indian photos out there.

Tweets on twitter

2008-05-09T17:01:00.000+05:30

I have been on twitter for three months, yet became an active user only last week. Guess the exams did quite have a positive effect on me for I simply love it. I was talking about twitter.

Twitter, which is soon making its way to become one of the most popular microblogging platforms has got me hooked. I feel commercial enterprises as well as entrepreneurs can really benefit from it in a LOT of ways. For start-ups, this can be the perfect way to keep in touch with thousands of people consisting of many social marketers, net geeks, other young entrepreneurs, update them on current happenings and it can act like the perfect platform for a start up story. It can also help existing players to promote their products. It could help get volunteers together and spread the word about contests etc. It helps keep in touch with a lot of people at once. Not as formal and rigid as linkedin, not as cluttered as orkut, its pretty.

For students this is a great opportunities to connect to some of the biggest names out there. Did you know Barack Obama is on twitter and has nearly 12000 followers and follows a similar number(though I seriously doubt that). Guy Kawasaki, Kiruba Shankar, Scobel....yada yada, they are all there...giving it a try, and far more responsive on twitter than on their personal blogs :P

From a personal point of view, its a far better way to advertise your blog posts through twitter for a majority of people might not have subscribed to your feeds and hence reach a larger audience quicker.

At the end of the day though, twitter does an effective job of pissing you off too. Cummon, accept it. It does crack their vein up. It gets really annoying and irritating because people just go on and on and nothing is structured. Who the hell said chaos is good?

But I'd still say its just in its early phases and has the potential to become something really big. This can become the ultimate social networking space, but as is the case with all social networks these days, it will get hit by the application bug. That will get people attracted though personally it will just destroy the simplicity of this wonderful application.

Twitter, with its mash-up with cell phones, you can update it through SMS, and now the great thing is you can do it in India too at local rates. So this makes live blogging so much more simpler. You don't need wi-fi or a laptop anymore. This was what saved a journalist who got into some serious trouble with the Egyptian authorities a while back and was thrown into jail. Twitter helped save his life get the embassies to his rescue.

Next Conquest lets Twitter it up then!

And do follow me on Twitter

Recruitment Trends

2008-04-27T21:08:00.000+05:30

Social media has certainly had a huge impact on our day to day life. We have all heard about how web 2.0 has made everything interactive and its user driven/oriented features have captivated the netizens. They are all now part of numerous social/professional networks. They are also quite interested in letting others know of their status and day-to-day life through blogs, microblogs etc.

Eventually recruitment will also become 2.0. Lot of companies already use this strategy, one such being Ogilvy and Mather, as they wonderfully explain it in this article.

In a nutshell, it means that recruitment will be a more comprehensive process. In reality it also means a more tedious one. Recruiters will no longer just want to see your recommendations and credentials and awards etc. They would rather see you in action. They would rather hear your views in public than make you sit on a chair and question you.

Consequences?

There will be very little left to hide, especially if you’re socially active online. Your blogs will be scanned thoroughly to get an idea of your personality, your LinkedIn lists will be scanned to find people to find out more about you. While this will ensure that the recruiters know the potential employee better, it will also mean that the recruiter should work overtime to go through all these blogs and social networks just to find that right candidate.

It will also mean that the candidates should be wary about their online identity. He should also keep in mind that whatever he says on the web is there to stay, thanks to the web-crawlers which take a snapshot of every page and hence make it accessible even if they are taken off.

An example can be: A candidate posts a link to a racist humour website on his blog and appreciates the jokes there. The recruiter might not fancy that and might start judging the candidate despite his good analytical abilities., and this might cost our man his job.

What is the role of the social entrepreneur?

2008-04-05T23:55:00.000+05:30

I originally posted this on my blog at Abhishaken.
------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

I'm reading 'How to Change the World: Social Entrepreneurs and the Power of New Ideas' by David Bornstein. The book is a collection of stories and essays on social entrepreneurs; and a must read for anybody fascinated by social change. I'm on chapter 8, which is an essay titled, 'Role of the social entrepreneur'. Its very well written and I wish I could reproduce it. In this post I've written a few of my views on the essay and have quoted Bornstein contextually.

The main motive behind the chapter was to show how social entrepreneurs are hidden behind their path-breaking ideas and rarely given credit. Actually its not a matter of credit, but also that social entrepreneurs are not as well scrutinized or researched as the case with business entrepreneurs. While business entrepreneurs have been given due credit for their role in changing the economies, social entrepreneurs are yet to be recognised as important forces of societal change. This is because sociologists consider factors driving social change- demographics, technology, economics, political processes- but do not consider the role of a 'charismatic leader'. In social innovation, ideas are more valued than people. People are just audience and are considered to have minimal role in an idea's successful propagation.

Such a thought would not fly for a second in the world of business, because its been proven over and over again that people driving ideas are more important than ideas. An idea with a great prospect will fail to reach its true potential if not fanatically pursued by a passionate and determined leader.This reasoning holds true in the social entrepreneurship world too.

A contemporary example will be Al Gore for 'Global warming' (personally, I think his picture is biased and very distorted. But thats another story.). His main role was that of an evangelist, a whistle blower or a lobbyist. He's made the US and Europe, frantic and paranoid about global warming. Thats no mean task. I think he's done more, than any scientist could have with research statistics.

Bornstein says, "An idea is like a play. It needs a good producer and a good promoter, even if it is a masterpiece. Otherwise the play may never open; or it may open but, for lack of an audience, close after a week." Ideas need champions and this is especially true for ideas which threaten status quo and go against all traditional wisdom or norms. Bornstein quotes James O' Toole from the book, 'Leading Change: The Argument for Values-Based Leadership', "The major factor in our resistance to change is the desire not to have the will of others forced on us." So if ideas need to take root as concrete realities, they'll need an obsessive, bullheaded tyrant with motivation to drive, persuade, cajole or inspire others into accepting the idea and its prospects.

Today when we try looking at various major social change that were once revolutionary and today, seem only logical, there was certainly one leader/entrepreneur who ignited the change. I can think of dowry abolition, sati abolition, widow remarriage, etc all being pioneered by various personalities like Ram Mohan Roy, Dayanand Saraswati, Babasaheb Ambedkar, etc. The fact though is, there's hardly any literature on scrutiny of their methods employed to reach their targets. Its probably because all the above people were praised as saints or mahatmas, one beyond any comparison with normal humans. In Christianity all the saints were almost certainly just proponents of great positive social progress and not really 'Holy' in the strictest terms. Since their motives were so selfless, their methods of achieving them haven't been recorded. It so appears that even though social entrepreneurs were identified and glorified much before business entrepreneurs (who were first identified in 'The Wealth of Nations' by Adam Smith in 1776), there's hardly any popular study on their methods.

I hope you read 'How to Change the World'', for essays on some contemporary entrepreneurs, who are Steve Jobs and Bransons of the social world. And if the world is lucky, you'll decide to change the world too.

On Internships and Practice School

2008-04-01T09:37:00.001+05:30

A short trip to Singapore made me see how much excess money was there. People just have too much money and are in a serious doubt about how to spend it.

But what really got me jealous were not the high rise buildings and the skimpily clad women folk, but the opportunities and exposure the students receive there. Internships where students are affecting the decision-making process, where you knew you were making a serious contribution to the organisation and what organisations Apple, Accenture, Google etc.

The Practice School Option of BITS-Pilani is one good effort made by the college in bringing the industry closer to the students but then again its lacking in many areas, especially PS-1, the compulsory internship after the students second year. First of all, most organisations don’t give you work and if at all you do end up working, the work isn’t anything substantial and in most cases than not you end up simply solving Sudoku puzzles.

True, one could argue that as such your lot does not possess any core technical skills (besides some people having some knowledge in the Computer domains) so you can in no way become an asset to the company in two months( in which time you could probably not even learn enough to contribute). But basics in a lot of mathematical & statistical courses have been established. As have in some basic level manufacturing processes. Maybe the introduction of more companies which can tap this resource would be a step in the right direction. Also, the students should at least be familiarised with the organisational structure of the company and made to show various levels of work. This could probably let the student assess himself and decide which area he would be best suited to work.

Other wise the whole PS-1 feature becomes futile.

Conquest 2008 results declared

2008-03-09T22:43:00.001+05:30

Grand finale!!!

Now its time for the results. Excitement is visible on the faces of all team members. As arrangements are being made,Prajakt Raut is giving some feedback about all the business plans. He thinks financials of all teams in general need a bit more of work.

Even though its 10.30, the hall is still full, thats quite an achievement!

Andy quotes "Money can't buy happiness, waiting to test the hypothesis" to sum up the mind of entrepreneur.

Now vote of thanks time by Prof.Natrajan.

Ok now we have the announcement here, Andy ends the suspense and its BITS 1 & 2.

Its Vita one and Phoenix two.

The whole hall goes mad. A huge applause to all the participants.

You can see relief on the faces of organisers. Kudos to them for organising the whole festival without a major hassle. No doubt Conquest now stakes claim as one of the best organised B-Plan competitions in the country.

Any suggestions or comments are always welcome.

Bye guys. I am out for a CEL party! :D.

Nirvana and Yuvamrit

2008-03-09T22:22:00.001+05:30

By Keerthikiran

Now we have Nirvana from ISB,Hyderabad, who are into Hospice. A concept which is not very big in India. His numbers just reiterate the same fact. No hospice industry existing in India.

It really is a holistic approach. They are looking into spiritual, social and many other factors.

Now a familiar face, Chitra (BITS alumnus) talks about the social barrier they would face to penetrate Indian market.

Now she comes to revenue projections and their exit strategy is to convert from a hospice to a hospital resort. They plan to break-even in 3 years, with a occupancy of 40%. They are planning to launch from Mumbai.

Chitra tells Arya sir that there is place for every one and they are not really afraid of competition despite of a easily replicable business (model).

One of the Judges endorsed their claim.

Chitra makes a very valid and powerful statement "Every one has a right to respectable and peaceful death"

Audience seem to be fixated to with the concept of "Indian perspective" with their questions.

Nirvana makes way for Yuvamrit from BITS-Pilani.
Lohit starts by striking a chord with the Bitsians by asking them about how many people have experience hair loss, almost the entire hall seems to affected .Now you know how to identify a Bitsian when you see one ;)

They have a video now to explain the problem of lack of pure water and its effects. Some really sad images.

Now they are explaining their purification process.

They say that at less than 1 rupee a day they can provide safe and pure water to a community.

Updates flowing fast from Pilani

2008-03-09T21:53:00.001+05:30

By Keerthikiran

Nobel (peace) prize seems to have had its effect. These students from NIT to come up with a renewable energy model based on waves. They are planning to generate electricity from waves. Their marketing strategy includes carbon credits, renewable energy certificate, which they claim to be some kind of buffer for existing electricity distribution companies.

One of the judges asks them who their first costumers would be? After a bit of dilly dallying with eco-tourism they end with distributors (power).

They say they have all the choices and they haven't closed any of them.

Now another judge asks them how a 30 crore (their requirement) company will deal with the 3 trillion energy business?

They expect eco-investors to help them out with this and they expect the carbon foot prints to work in their favour.

Andy says "we have completely run out of time, so only one quickie " ;)

Now come Vita Peracta and there is a roar that goes up in the hall.

Sindhu starts off by talking about campus placements and the recruitment process of companies. How arbitrary the selection usually ends up.

She introduces the their first product where their product helps companies recruit better, by asking the potential employees to play "games", whose simulation would give a fair idea about whom to pick.

Now Amruth talks about where they stand. He talks about the product they are building for Times group and Perot systems. Their focus for now seems to be HR and recruitment issues.

they are using a "web services (subscription)" business model. They expect to break even in 1.5 years.That seems great!

Now as an answer to a judge's question the team explains how Vita is different from the existing models.

Amruth answers to one of the questions that you can't trick our system :P.

Teams Inspire auience to Conquer!

2008-03-09T21:15:00.000+05:30

I am sitting in the Open Door Presentation of Conquest 2008. These are times when I love being at BITS Pilani. I am hearing these plans for almost the secong time (was flitting in and out of the Closed Door session). But I am hanging onto each word they have to say. I see the 600 pairs of eyeballs inside the Lecture Theatre Complex giving all their attention to the teams!

Diamas coats from IIT Kharagpur envision to use diamond coating to enhance the life, efficiency of shaving blades, surgical cutters and the like. The one thing I would closely follow was their promise to make foamless/gel-free shaving possible! I would love to loose my huge shaving paraphernalia!

Next to face the firing squad (grilling of Diamas Coats by the audience was ruthless) was Phoenix from BITS Pilani. Epsilon winners (the Intra-BITS Idea-to-Business Plan Competitoion), these guys have a way to regenerate a critical chemical used in the steel industry. They have a prototype up and running! They had a slide full of awards,achievements and business plan competition wins! They are facing some chin music from the judges right now, I hear. Let me get back and find out!

(I need to keep running to Rakesh jis room to access internet and publish this)

People waiting with bated breath!

2008-03-09T20:35:00.000+05:30

Six teams battle it out to take home the glimmering trophies and the huge cheques. More than the piece of crystal and cash, it is the Conquest. Results to be declared very shortly. Keep checking to find out who is the Winner of Conquest 2008!

The Conquest Trophy and the Prize Money

The SparkS presentation by Vineet and the subsequent demo of the prototype by Alam Jaideep and Karteek Addanki was amazing! They have developed a automatic headlight dipper system and said and I quote

Only after SparkS happened did we think of turning this college project into a product!

See you soon with the results :)

Blogging Live from the Open Doors Presentation from 5105, FD-5, BITS Pilani !!

Two Teams done!

2008-03-09T14:07:00.000+05:30

The Closed Door Presentation of Conquest 2008 is taking a lunch break and hence the Live blog is up again! Two teams : Diamas Coats from IIT Kharagpur and Phoenix from BITS Pilani are done with their presentations.

The tone for the day was set by Mr Anurag Jain, one of our Judges, who didn't want the finalists to be intimidated by the formal setting of the Senate room (look at the pic in the post below :-) ). So, we changed the setting and now as I look at the room now, looks like a group of friends have just finished a chat!

Looks like the session is about start again! Catch you soon.

Live Blogging from Conquest 2008, BITS Pilani

Conquest 2008 : Closed Door Presentation

2008-03-09T10:09:00.000+05:30

The most important round of Conquest 2008 is just about to begin. As I send this in, we are setting up the Senate Room in FD-2. B Plan hard copies, presentations, judging sheets...

Well, pictures speak louder.

Panel Discussion 2: Follow your Heart (Was Why do 90% of Startups Fail?)

2008-03-08T18:59:00.002+05:30

"An entrepreneur fails only when he thinks he's failing"... Kaushik Mukherjee kicked off the panel discussion with a topic that's got everyone excited: "Why do 90% of all startups fail?". (Kaushik is a final-year student at IIM-A and is launching his new venture, loot-street.com shortly)

Prabhat Garg (of Inventiv Technologies) offers an optimistic view "90% of startups don't fail." (Yaay!) "It's just that 90% of ideas presented to VCs don't survive (for long)" (Huh?)

Krishna clarifies "Start a business for the value it provides... not just something which would look good on a VC's portfolio. VCs are typically bad judges of ideas that are truly ground-breaking.".

Prabhat chips in on the VC mentality: "Trends... VCs are great at spotting trends. If you don't fit a trend, though, you'll find it hard to please VCs." There's considerable talk on the VC standpoint of making 5x returns in 5 years. "It's like BITS Pilani, ... investment is a highly competitive environment. You come to BITS being a topper all your life, and then realize that you are ID number 600...If you can get a top-class VC backing you, you must be really, really good"

(Note to non-BITSians: BITS Pilani gives students ID numbers based on their score in an entrance exam)

So, what makes the 10% of the companies stand out?

Opinions vary. "You are out there only to have fun... If you stop having fun, you stop innovating", says Manish Dhingra of Techkriti, "You need to be people-centric. We started something called 'Tech Innovate Day' every week... and the results were wonderful. It was surprising: after working all day, people still had the energy to innovate.", he added.

Identifying a market need is important too. "We realized that HR departments in most companies were highly inefficient. There was lots of room to innovate. If you have something of value to offer, it's hard to fail", said Krishna.

"We like to set ourselves exceptionally hard challenges.... just one day before the portal launch, we realized there wasn't enough innovation in our ideas.... And then we came up with a first-of-its-kind concept called 'On-Demand-Retail'. It took a lot of gumption to stall the launch for a week so that we could implement our concept", offers Prabhat Garg (of autsun.com, which incidentally means "anything under the sun". A tall challenge in itself)

Audience question: "How do you succeed in a market where mistakes are costly?"

Manish Garg: "Get it right the first time" That was obvious, I'll say. But oh, there's more. "Subsequently, when you have the customer's trust, people are more forgiving. If you sc*** up, people are going to get angry. But there's always an opportunity to make amends. You have to grab that", Prabhat adds.

Damn... I missed a joke. Live blogging is challenging! :)

Back to topic:

Prabhat: "People leave you when they don't see your vision, or they don't share your perseverence.... You can always entice with stock options, but that's useless to someone who doesn't see your vision. Getting the right employees is crucial. People who really believe will stick, and those are the people you should be bothered about" (Emphasis mine)

Prof Arya Kumar makes a point "Over financing kills more startups than under-finance. Having less makes you innovate more."

Ajay Chturvedi (VP, Citibank) chips in too "Laloo Prasad compares the railways to a cow -- if you don't milk it enough, the cow will fall sick. But there's a point he has: I'd never heard of operating ratios in a Railway budget before! You can innovate anywhere: even in the Railways! You just have to follow your heart" (Emphasis mine again)

What makes India a Land of Opportunity

2008-03-08T17:03:00.000+05:30

"It is about who you are", said , says Ajay Chatuvedi, answering a question about what's peculiar about India and its startup culture. A great beginning to a panel discussion that promised to answer a question dear to all of us: why is India a great place to startup?

Sujit speaks about how the face of India's industry is changing: in the early 2000s, when companies felt computers were playthings, to 2008, when CRM and ERP is the lifeblood of any company.

"Your network is your biggest strength", Sujit added, alluding to the BITSAA network. "We're here to help you", he says (Sujit is highly active in the BITSAA Delhi chapter)

A rather extended discussion on the acceptability of entrepreneurship is happening right now.

Sudhir talked about perceptions of people about 30 years ago, when probably the best an engineer from BITS could expect to make 400rs a month, which was lesser than what cigarette walas made. He's surprised at how things have changed and somebody like Ajay (gesturing to him) might be making a corroe a year.

Ajay spoke of his experience with entrepreneurship. He suggests experimentation is as important as innovation. He stressed that the vision is what makes the start-up successful!

The panel agreed on the fact that the government is pretty supportive of start-ups in India currently.

Ajay pointed out

"Identifying, the point in the value chain where, the startup will be entering. In Biotech companies, where the closest competitors can have huge differences in revenues depending on their intellectual properties."

Right now they are talking about the education system. Ajay made a candid confession that even his best classmates from Wharton cannot start-up and replicate Dabbawallas' success! It is all about the mind set! Education helps and was compared to the cord of the Bungee jumping!

Their views on funding was nostalgia for me because that's exactly what Nakul, Akash and I discussed a few days back. I actually covered that in my column "Demystifying Funding" in the last issue of PULSE! Funding is a double edged sword. If you take it too early, you dilute your equity. If you get it too late, you land up high and dry.

Live blogging from BITS Pilani's business challenge : Conquest 2008

Technorati Tags: BITS Pilani,CEL,Pilani,Conquest

Medical Devices market highly unexplored!

2008-03-08T15:35:00.000+05:30

Dr GSK Velu is currently conducting a workshop on the opportunities for start-ups in Pharma and Bio-tech sectors. I knew these were hot sectors. But, my God this is HUGE!

Dr GSK Velu is a BITS Pilani Pharmacy graduate who went on to start Metropolis Health Services. He is currently the Managing Director of the company. He sponsored a half page ad in Pulse (our Intra-BITS newsletter). Hence, a special soft corner for him. Wait, let me concentrate on the talk!

Hey, am back! He is fielding questions,so let me use this time to tell you about the workshop. A couple of bullets :

A Biomedical engineer should typically spend some time in an engineering college and some in a med school. He exhorted BITS Pilani to tkae up this initiative.
Lack of standards in the Medical Devices market (when he mentions Medical Devices he means in-vivo devices. No net right now, so can't wiki to see what that means!)
India is better at innovation. China : re-engineering and copying! India rocks at value addition!
Biomedical engineers in huge demand (policy makers listening?)
Skill labs are labs with mannequins and models to test out medical technologies. India's first one coming up in Chennai.
Patient assisting devices like implants not doing well in India because of lack of a conducive research and testing eco-system.
Interaction with the doctors very important! Lots of examples of failures because of not doing this! IIT Madras has got a Rs. 100 crore grant from Dept. of Biotechnology, Govt of India. But, due to no interaction with doctors, no commercial product yet.
I think the last point can be applied to any sector without much loss of truth! The interaction with end user, your customer, right from the day when you sit at the drawing board is very very essential for the success of you start-up!

You know how this Pharma graduate entered the Medical technology market? He was doing his PS-2 at a Cancer institute where a sophisticated instrument was gathering dust as no one knew how to install it. Dr Velu, the quintessential BITSian, used his knowledge of electronics, IT and a lot of other things (remember he was a Pharma grad) to get it up and running. An impressed professor and the realization of the huge opportunity turned him into an entrepreneur soon enough!

Inspiring talk! Feels good to hear a successful BITSian. Infuses a fresh dose of ambition into all of us!

Prof Maheshwari praises CEL, BITS Pilani

2008-03-08T15:04:00.001+05:30

Prof Maheshwari quickly adds to the upbeat atmosphere at the Conquest "inaug". Local wisdom, Sanskrit shlokas, and personal adventures... all seem to be ai part of the Journey that begins at BITS Pilani. I'm sure that the non-BITSian teams at Conquest are getting all jealous :)

Oh, some thing about attending classes again! Laughter ripples across the room. Quote by Akio Morita "Technology innovation should reflect market requirements. "

And yeah, he calls CEL a bunch of highly motivated people. This part of my blog is about blowing our own trumpet!

Conquest 2008 takes off at BITS Pilani

2008-03-08T14:57:00.000+05:30

5 months, countless sleepless nights, many tense moments later we are finally here! Conquest 2008 was inaugurated a few minutes ago by Dr GSK Velu, Prof Maheshwari and Prof Arya Kumar with the ceremonial lamp lighting.

As I write this, Dr GSK Velu, a BITSian, is recounting how BITS and his first BITSian zucs, taught him to take failure in his stride which helped him immensely as an entrepreneur. He reiterated the fact that having no attendance has probably made each BITSian a success or as he put it a Bollywood/Cricket star! We love you, Sir! We love you even more for your generous offer to help BITSians.

By the time I was able to click photographs, Prof. Maheshwari, VC of BITS Pilani took the stage and quickly added attendance, or rather the lack of it, is just one of the many flexibilities BITS Pilani provides! He joked that probably attendance for Conquest should be made compulsory :) We would really love that!

Cant upload the pics :(

Technorati Tags: Pilani,BITS Pilani,Conquest,CEL

Countdown to the Inaug of Conquest 2008

2008-03-08T14:48:00.001+05:30

Delegates are here! Finalists of Conquest are waiting with bated breath. All it remains are those lamps to light up, the stage to be graced by Mr. GSK Velu, Founder, Metropolis Health Services, Prof Maheshwari, VC BITS and Prof Arya Kumar, our mentor, adviser and guide!

Cant upload pics! Will do so later
Technorati Tags: Pilani,BITS Pilani,Conquest,Inaugration,CEL

Live Blogging from Pilani

2008-03-08T10:27:00.001+05:30

Wow! Finally I get to live blog an event! Conquest 2008 Grand Finales start today at 2 PM (+5 30 GMT). A host of bloggers would be live blogging it and I am one of those lucky ones! For updates and exciting event details, Keep checking

E factor   (CEL Blog)
The Final Word        (K Keerthikiran)
Through the Foliage (Anurag Dutta)
ComplexIsolatedSIngular (Vineet Pandey)
Rach 100% Sach     (My Personal Blog)

This promises to be one long day for me!

Blogging Live from Conquest 2008, BITS Pilani (March 8th-9th).

Conquest 2008 : Inspire Innovate Conquer

2008-03-05T06:44:00.000+05:30

The Grand Finale of Conquest 2008 is just about 75 hours away! We have tentatively added one more panel discussion to the schedule thanks to the overwhelming response to Abhishek's post! As Abhilash put it, its an amazing opportunity to address the 2000 of the brightest minds in the country!

And guess what, a bunch of enthused CELites (the fresh blood has boundless energy man!) decided to make a video for Conquest. Watch it ! (yeah, we almost hero worship the folks at Cupertino)

Conquest 2008 : March 8th and 9th at BITS Pilani

(Mirrored at the my blog : Rach 100% Sach

Technorati Tags: Pilani,BITS Pilani,CEL,Entrepreneurship,Conquest,Business Plan

Conquest 2008 : Grand Finale

2008-03-04T03:04:00.000+05:30

CONQUEST 2008, the International Business Plan competition is heading towards its Grand Finale. VCs, Entrepreneurs and the finalists are set to come together on the 8th and 9th of March at BITS Pilani (Click here to download the schedule). It is not just a celebration of the spirit of entrepreneurship. It is the celebration of the underlying human spirit. The spirit to Innovate, Inspire and Conquer. CONQUEST 2008 has something on offer for everyone.

Are you a young entrepreneur with a story to inspire?

Cool. We would love to host you as a speaker. Ping me at +91 99835 25185 or buzz me at rachit.chandra@gmail.com and I'll get back to you.

Are you an entrepreneurial enthusiast?

Conquest Workshops and talks make sure that when you do take the dive, you are well informed and suitably equipped. This time, we have a thought provoking Panel Discussion on "Why is India the Land of Opportunity right now ?" (or as Chinmay calls it LOO) with the charming Rashmi Bansal (of JAM fame) planned as well.

Conquest 2008 has a unique Open Door Presentation where anybody can walk in and look at what it takes to make it to the finals of an International Business Plan competition. And yeah, you get goodies to grill the teams :)

Are you the networking types?

With VCs, Business Heads, Entrepreneurs, Bloggers, Journalists and budding Entrepreneurs coming together it is a Networking dream. And as they say, success is not only measured, but also depends largely on the number of contacts you can pull out of your Rodolex.

Are you a Pizza Lover?

Domino's is partnering with Conquest 2008. So, make sure to grab your slice and extract treats strategically!

Look out for updates on the profiles of our finalists and our speakers soon! A special thanks to our Partners : Google, HP, Perot Systems, General Motors and Patni. Its our honor to be associated with such partners who share our vision of creating leaders through entrepreneurship.

( Mirrored at My Blog : Rach 100% Sach )

It's funny, ain't it?

2008-02-14T20:25:00.000+05:30

I was tossing through the E-Factor archives; in silent wonder at the way CEL in general, and close friends in particular, seem to have grown. From the crazy days when I proclaimed "Where there's Muck, there's Gold!" to the more self-reflective moments over which Abhishek pondered whether it's right to startup at college, this blog seems to have captured diverse times like a Bob Dylan song.

In the meanwhile, the BITS mindset also seems to have changed,: there's a third choice to "what after BITS?"-- entrepreneurship is alive and thriving.

As a entrepreneurship cell, I thought we should know what motivates people to startup. And so I asked people.

Believe it or not: the reasons are as numerous as the startups themselves: "Freedom from bosses"... "Get rich!"... "Well, I won a business plan competition, so..."... "My cousin did. If he can, so can I!"..."I want to change the world".

I'm convinced now, that as an e-cell, we don't need to give people their reason to startup. (We never did this anyway, thinking such presentations are somewhat silly and miss the point, but it's good to see we seem to have done the right thing!)

All we need to do is to let people rediscover their reason, and then support them when they're ready (e.g. incubation at TBI, mentoring though Epsilon and more)

So far, it's working well...

More about that in a subsequent post by Nakul.

Oh, and in case you're wondering (play along if you weren't) what would persuade me to startup; this quote by Isaac Asimov sums it up nicely:

The most exciting phrase to hear in science, the one that heralds new discoveries, is not "Eureka!", but "That's funny..."

(Replace science with business, and discoveries with success!)

The winners are out!

2008-02-11T01:28:00.000+05:30

Guys, thanks for the response to BITS Blogger's Challenge! The enthusiasm was great. We sure did get some people to start blogging because of the challenge.

Without further ado. Drumroll...Here are the two winners. Read them, they are fabulous.
1. Rachit Chandra from BITS-Pilani
2. LuckyMurari(Lakshman) from BITS-Pilani

Rachit blogs on efactor too. See, we got a winning blogger here :) .

New Blogger???

2008-02-03T13:20:00.000+05:30

Read the previous post if you havent.

Well, if you are interested in the Blogger's Challenge but don't know how to begin , here's a quick guide.

First to have a blog and post articles in it, you need to have account in a website that provides the blogging service. Few of the sites that offer are:
www.blogspot.com, www.wordpress.org, www.livejournal.com.

You will have to register in the website to create a blog. The simplest of them is www.blogspot.com which doesnt require registration if you have a Google account, just use your GMail ID and password to log in. Then there is a option to create a new blog, you can choose your theme, and off you are with your brand new BLOG!

Choose "Create New Post" to add an article to your blog. Writing an article an uploading it is as easy as working on a simple text editor (like word). Very Simple. Other portals provide very similar interfacing and are easy to use too.

So what are you waiting for, go ahead, start blogging.

BITS Blogger's Challenge

2008-02-01T17:59:00.000+05:30

Blogging! Doesn’t it ring a bell? This modern day concept which grew rapidly into a phenomenon is one of the most happening arenas in the cyberspace today. Often considered as a modern day electronic diary, a mirror of the mind, or just a place where you could write just about anything under the sun, blogging has captured the fancies of all alike.

Its high time BITS had an event that would showcase the blogging abilities of the innumerable bloggers out there. And the time’s here!!!

CEL Presents

BITS Blogger’s Challenge

2nd to 8th Feb, 2008 E-Week

..as a part of the E-Week celebrations. Go ahead and blog, just about anything, but we’d appreciate if there’s a hint of "entrepreneurship" in it. Posts that are dated from 2nd Feb 2008 to 8th Feb 2008 shall be considered for judging.

Registration:

Registering is as simple as mailing in the link of your blog.

For students: Send in your name, ID and the link to your blog.
For faculty: Send in your name, designation and the link to your blog.

Mail the details to eweek@celbits.org on or before 4th Feb 2008.

Judging and prizes would be different for students and faculty.

GET BLOGGING. GET NOTICED. WIN BIG.

Collaboration Software

2007-11-19T18:13:00.001+05:30

Center for Entrepreneurial Leadership has grown by leaps and bounds in the recent past be it in terms of number of members or the sheer scope of projects being undertaken. With multiple projects running and sometimes meets going on concurrently, there was a long felt need to share information across projects on a more real-time basis and in a more efficient manner.

The geek in me missed a beat or two when Nakul suggested to adopt a Collab Software. Imagine a server (yes our own server) running in the CEL room, serving our requests to access resources latest updates, timelines...

Currently, we are on a lookout for Collaboration Software which can be hosted locally on the BITS servers (CEL server shall have to wait).Basically we need a simple portal where we can have a discussion board carrying the latest updates and a way to share files elegantly. I am currently evaluating activeCollab and I simply love it. If you have any suggestions do drop me a line at rachit@celbits.org.

--
Voice : +91 99835 25185
Blog : http://rach-mu.blogspot.com

Varying the Input

2007-09-16T09:00:00.000+05:30

"To vary the output, one needs to vary the input." - Sigmund Freud

Sigmund Freud was a genius, but c'mon; everyone knows it's easier to teach new dogs new tricks!
Historically, the best way to get high quality innovation at CEL has been to get high quality, diverse, crazy people to work here!

Today is one such momentous occasion, where we're varying the input at CEL! An hour from now, we're welcoming our new bunch of recruits. These guys have already sweated it out in our Bootcamp program (note to the old bunch: the bootcamp was much more rigorous this time round, with the recruits being given their very own live project to work on for a month (supervised by a CELite).)

One of the results of the bootcamp was a project the new kids lovingly called "Business Tycoon"; which was something of a cross between a stock-market and a country fair. ~~Participants winners~~ Participants got free dinners and more at C'not. And boy, was it fun!

I can't wait to see how these guys innovate at CEL.

And yes, it isn't too long a wait! :)

Will keep you posted!

Genetic Algorithms and Entrepreneneurship

2007-08-24T11:23:00.000+05:30

I'm kicked about Genetic Algorithms (GAs) to drive the guts of my new super-secret project.

GAs are a method of "finding solutions to global optimization problems using biological concepts like reproduction, crossover, and mutation". Essentially, what the algorithm does is model possible solution to the problem as living individuals; who mate amongst themselves. After many generations of such mating, it is expected that the "fittest" survive.

The fittest individuals are, of course, the ones that optimize the solution.

The funny part about GAs is that no one precisely knows how they work, but boy, they do work!

I find myself applying the GA theory to all sorts of problems, like why detergent packaging is getting flashier and bigger. The most interesting problem I've seen so far, though, is the business of startups.

Like everything else, startups evolve. Most are born out of marrying ideas. Some are mutants (you know, the stuff that people call "revolutionary"). Some of them manage the game of the "survival of the fittest". Most don't.

Now, here's the important thing.
Most media folks love a "revolutionary" idea. They adore a mutant. Don't trust them.

GAers know that crossovers, not mutants, are the most significant route to an optimized solution. In fact, most GAs keep mutants below 1% of the total population.

In order to be successful, marrying the right ideas is more important than creating random mutants.

Which brings us to the second, and more controversial question: which ideas are the right ones (to crossover)?

There is considerable debate on this, yet the most accepted view is that small, focussed ideas work best.

The ethical ramifications are large. However, I think a startup would do well to find the best existing ideas and combine them in a meaningful fashion. It is usually easier, and more successful than creating a successful mutant.
As a parting word, GAs work on populations as a whole, and the above truths are statistical. So, there still is a need for considerable skill in identifying the "right" ideas.

Which is what makes startups exciting, in the first place!

Startup!

2007-08-02T16:13:00.000+05:30

I was just reading about craigslist, it started as a mailing list about social events of interest to software and internet developers living and working in San Francisco. Today craigslist operates in 450 cities all over the world, providing information about almost everything, from classifieds to pets to jobs to personals.

What amazes me about the whole story is the evolution of a simple mailing list into a website with 5 billion page views per month. I wonder if Craig Newmark even in his wildest dreams thought of craigslist growing into what it is today. Its the story of almost all the big companies. Most of them started with a simple idea they had and on their way they found problems and opportunities . They worked with them and grew on to what we know today as huge companies with a wide and varied portfolio.

When i hear people talking of scope, business plan, exit strategy and all the business jargon. I am just caught wondering may be the route to a successful startup is going out there with your idea and just starting up. May be the rest would follow.

Keerthi Kiran (Keki)

The least technology theorem

2007-06-27T22:37:00.000+05:30

I am a self-confessed tech-enthusiast.

I simply have to check out every new Internet access device, every new piece of workflow/project management software, and upgrade each software on my Ubuntu desktop every single night.

One of the first things I did as a Networks VP for CEL was to get key people their own celbits.org email address. And through much of my academic year, I tried to get my Networks team as addicted to email as I had gotten. (At one point, my average turnaround time for email was under 7 minutes. Needless to say, I didn't sleep well.)

But this post is not about my addiction to technology. It is about a dark little secret I've discovered: the best way to use technology is to use as little of it as possible.

Let me elaborate (before I'm booed by fellow tech junkies).

Let's try and understand the situation.

Most people want to solve their problems: how can I double the number of participants for Conquest? How can I generate the maximum employment for a community of women? How can I teach a bunch of undergrad engineers how to write a biz-plan?

They aren't concerned about:

Making data "seamlessly available everywhere"
Reducing pdfs file size
Answering email queries within 8 hours (especially when told McKinsey does it in 6)
Creating documentation that can be studied by their successors
Creating an enterprise knowledgebase

Notice that quite a few of these non-concerns are buzzwords today. And some of them are really important. But, of course, those aren't anybody's prime motivation to work.

So, what do we do? Here's the classic approach:

Create a wiki. Send invites. Hope people work there instead of firing up Word
Send email reminders to clear your inbox before you're done for the day
Make mailing lists
Coax someone to take meeting minutes and post the on the wiki
Create an enterprise versionable file management system etc.

But all of these involve MORE WORK. Which distracts from solving Important Problems. And so, ultimately, never work.

The key, I now realize, is making people do less.

Don't make a mailing list for every little project. Just add everyone in the "To:" field in the email, and use Reply All
Forget the wiki, enterprise file management etc. Create an FTP server. People download the Word doc, change it, and save it on the server.
Version control? Don't bother: folks are smart enough to call files Bizplan_rev2.doc, bizplan_final.doc etc
Send minimum email. Don't discuss on email if you can avoid it (I have seen discussions/debates go on for weeks on email. A ten-minute phone call might have solved the issue)
Keep email short. It is perfectly acceptable to say just "Ok."
You don't need to reply to everything. (e.g. You mail your neighbor to just thank him for the file he sent)

This is not rocket-science, of course. But then, a few thumb-rules never hurt.

PS: This is also meant to help a recovering tech junkie like me. If you have more tips, leave them in the comments.

PPS: Oh yes, lest I forget-- scaling up is an issue with any low-tech solution. Don't bother about this until you actually reach a scale that is troubling your current system.

To startup while at college

2007-05-05T23:00:00.000+05:30

My first post on efactor and I'm addressing a question which I've never been able to answer satisfactorily. Should students startup while still at college? I've tried to give all the possible answers people tend to give when asked.

No they shouldn't.
1. There's a lot of time in the future to start ventures and its best to learn and experiment with interests at while at college. The point is, a venture narrows down your focus on something which quite possibly isn't your passion and might actually leave you frustrated in the future.

2. Your grades could get screwed because you put effort on the venture, which quite possibly will fail, leaving you helpless with grades you don't deserve. (for all of you who are right now thinking, grades don't matter, trust me they do.)

No they can't.
1. University provides a cocoon, protects you and keeps you away from the realities of life. Its tough to pull off ventures because you really don't understand the real situation out there. Of course for a web venture, it is quite possible.

2. People won't take you seriously enough. People won't trust you enough.
People look at undergraduates as kids, their ventures as college projects. They doubt your commitment.

Yes they should.
1. Their project might just be the next breakthrough in the industry. If it is not monetized soon enough, it'll be too late. Such opportunities come rare.

2. A lot of responsibilities get piled on after graduation. risk appetite suddenly becomes low when you are on your own. Best to start up at college, when you've got parents backing you, great friends to support you, professors available to provide free advice.

Yes they can.
1. The best ventures can be started up at college, because that is the place where smart minds meet, live together. A lot of web startups show this trend, Paul Graham puts this perfectly "It's not what people learn in classes at MIT and Stanford that has made technology companies spring up around them. They could sing campfire songs in the classes so long as admissions worked the same." I have a feeling its true for BITS-Pilani too.

2. Startups need the enthusiasm, blind optimism which only students can bring. Fresh ideas come from the unprejudiced mind. Out of the box thinking becomes quite tough when you are already been exposed to realities.

I've still not decided which is the answer but that hasn't stopped me from experimenting with entrepreneurship or starting up.

You decide for yourself.

Abhishek

(Abhishek is a budding tech entrepreneur, and also blogs at A site a day. Abhishek can be contacted at abhishek@celbits.org -Ed)

Conquest Experiences

2007-04-18T16:32:00.000+05:30

You've always heard the CEL side of the story: how Conquest was, plans for something bigger and so forth.

Now, hear it from the Other Side. Tan Iris Go, one of the finalists for Conquest 2007 (Team Transtrack) blogs about her experiences with Conquest and Pilani.

You can find more here.

P.S for Team CEL: The "Stingy Coordinator " for Conquest 2007, a.k.a. Nakul, is throwing you a "grand" treat this Saturday. Of course, he's called Stingy for a reason. You only get the treat if you go to the post-mortem session immediately preceding it.

Long distance collaboration (and love?)

2007-04-17T14:46:00.000+05:30

This post is split in two parts, in the order above. So, feel free to jump to the part that interests you more ;)

Collaboration

I just spent 56 min on a Skype conference with Abhi and Udki, discussing a variety of things that they'd like to discuss in today evening's 30 minute meeting (which I have with the team in Pilani).

Yeah, Abhi in Bangalore, Udki in Fountainebleau (France) and me in Pilani (India) spent around an hour discussing what should have taken no longer than about 15 min of facetime.

Clearly, there is something wrong. Does one get less smart when on Skype? I wonder.

One hour is a long time. Allows plenty of time for experimentation. This is what I discovered:

Turn off the screen: You won't believe it, but staring at a screen makes you react slower. My theory is that part of our brain is busy reading what's on screen, and is continiously interrupting your train of thought. Somewhat like talking on the phone while reading a book. However, staring at a screen is worse-- it updates in real time!
Use a wireless headset/headphone: Increased mobility. Also, I can't think unless I'm pacing. So, if Skype glues you to your seat, there -- slower communication
Alternatively (to 1 & 2): Use an ultraportable/laptop with wifi: Yeah, heavier to lug around, but still does the job (at no extra expense). Plus you can shut the lid, and get rid of the distracting screen.
Three's a conference, more is a crowd: When you have more people in the conference, everyone speaks at once! Not just is it distracting ("Sorry, please continue..."... "No, what were you saying?"), but you waste time everytime this happens ("hey... I forgot. I think you should continue...").
Skype can't record: Not at least by default. I've heard GizmoProject can, so should give it a spin. It's funny, really: you have a conference, but no minutes, no transcipts, no records at the end of it.
Use with discretion: Yeah, Skype offers "phone quality" sound; but it just doesn't feel the same. I'm sure there are enough folks like me out there, so do ask whether they're everyone's ok with Skype. I'm still new to the program, and regularly feel like a dork. I don't even know how to say something "aside" in a conference!

Ok. That was Worldly Gyaan about Skype. Now for the "love" part:

"Someone" told me yesterday he spent Rs 1500 last month speaking to his girlfriend on the phone (That's around $35). That's a lot for a student. Especially given the fact that the said girlfriend lives in Delhi (Rs 300 by bus roundtrip).

Love costs a lot, long distance. Unlike collaboration, I have no tips here. Just a question: methinks this is a huge market. If anyone could come up with a way to cut "Someone"'s bill by half, the entrepreneur's going to be richer than God.

So why isn't anyone doing it?

PS: Love seems to cost even more, long distance. "Someone" tells me the said girlfriend spent about Rs5000/- ($117.50) in the same period. Love may be blind, but it certainly talks a lot!

CEL Work-flow Dynamics

2007-04-15T15:04:00.000+05:30

Like Rachit said in the previous post, we are all very excited and enthusiastic about the new process-project work flow at CEL. Let me briefly share some of the interesting features that I believe will contribute a lot of value to the system:

1. Clearly defined roles and responsibilities: Every activity and project at CEL is given some shape in terms of what would be the basic responsibilities of the role and what does CEL as a whole expect from the people filling these roles. This might be the umpteenth time I might be saying this, but i strongly believe that any relationship works only when two criteria are satisfied:

The other person feels that you are important. That's when he will get into a relationship with you.
The other person feels he is important in the relationship and to you. That's when he will stay on the team and continue giving inputs.

I think the new model goes a long way in strengthening the second aspect while the first was always inbuilt at CEL.

2. Unique Project-Team linking: I am sorry if people are blaming the new system for not allowing them to officially be working for more than one project, but I believe it is absolutely necessary in the initial stages atleast for you to develop a sense of ownership (man, Anaand... you were right!) and a sense of belonging with the team they are working with. At the end of the day, how much passion and fire you breathe into your project is always directly correlated with the degree of association you share with the project. It's your project and it's only yours... cruise ahead guys!

3. Better Coordination: We have talked about it a lot. Maintaining database to coordinate our outreach, plan our resource requirements and have a method to share learning experiences between projects. But now that someone is accountable for these things at CEL and someone gets to see how beautiful/ugly things turn out to be because of his ideas, strategies and implementation I guess the motivation to bring alive these processes is all the more. Also with each area of activity [Finances, Sponsorship, PR, Logistics, Netoworks] being completely overseen by an individual coordinating our efforts should be easy (We're hoping so...). And finally, a 1 hour DOT, boost-meet (will blog about what a boost meet is sometime...) every sunday should bring in some strength to intra-CEL knowledge sharing.

4. In/Out Process: Freedom was the mantra behind the way in which activities and duties were evolved. We are just adding a bit of direction to that before giving complete freedom to the new recruits at CEL. We are having a project in and project out process for how a new member is taken into a project or how he exits. In both these cases, the primary focus is on how a new member gets the hang of the project in terms of not just info but also about team dynamics and learning experiences they have had. Yea, a meet or two will have to be scheduled exclusively to this by the relevant project, but we believe its worth it! About CEL recruitment... more about it later... Frankly, no clear ideas as of now.

5. Senior Team Members: When I say senior, I am really meaning senior. I am referring to faculty and alumni who will be involved in ONE CEL project which they would like to join and work with the team. We have 4 avenues for how this would work out [CEL Website, email groups, CEL Wiki page & our very own CEL Blog - efactor]. Also as senior members of the team, we sincerely hope that you help us improve CEL and the way projects are run. However, we kindly request you to let the final decision on issues concerning CEL projects to rest with the student team. We believe that way, mistakes committed will become a part of the learning curve of the students. Also it will go a long way in strengthening their belongingness in the team.

And yea, Conquest has a new team, a new Coord and Joint coord... It has been another unforgettable experience with Conquest. Personally, every Conquest has brought something so new, so radical which has changed my thought process. Last Conquest brought with it an insight into the Joy and Motivation for starting up your own dream. And now that I am in the waters, this Conquest has brought in loads of experience, contacts and ideas that will cling to me for a long time to come...

To the new Conquest team and everyone - All the very best guys! Keep shining.

Stand Tall
Amruth

Change : Not a luxury

2007-04-15T12:28:00.000+05:30

At the Center, change is the currency not a luxury. The most recent change that plans to revamp CEL is the new work flow dynamics. Had a boost meet for discussing that and assigning new roles.

And for the record Arpit is the new Conquest 2008 coordinator with Shailesh being the Joint Co-Od. I am very enthused about the Process-Project classification. Lets see how it works.

Conquest 2007 : VIT Pune triumphs

2007-04-12T02:34:00.000+05:30

Its finally out!!! Soltec, a team of two young to-be-engineers has finally conquered Conquest 2007. These guys from VIT Pune faced stiff competition from NUS Singapore's Transtrack who finished second. Teams from BITS pilani, ITM Mumbai and IIT Madras had to be content with the coveted finalist Conquest 2007 tag.

The idea that brought Soltec glory (and not to forget a cheque of Rs 60,000) is a product. Isn't that music to your ears? It is so reassuring to find a product based company thrashing stiff competition from other brilliant teams to win. Soltec plans to manufacture stick-on solar chargers for your mobile devices starting with cell phones.

I am obsessed with products based start-ups and had blogged about it as well. Conquest 2007 also had big names like Amit Ranjan (of slideshare.net fame), Manish Vij, Ashmeet Sidana coming down making it all the more worthwhile. But, yeah Nakul thanks for the Delhi trip.

Conquest snaps at slideshare.net (Thanks Amit)

Update 2

2007-04-08T11:35:00.002+05:30

Someone's forgotten to get the USB connector for the camera! So no photos till lunch.

Team # 2 on stage. Way too technical for me. Off for a break!

Update 2

2007-04-08T11:35:00.001+05:30

Someone's forgotten to get the USB connector for the camera! So no photos till lunch.

Team # 2 on stage. Way too technical for me. Off for a break!

Live updates from Conquest 2007: Part 1

2007-04-08T11:15:00.000+05:30

We're having the Grand Finale of Conquest 2007 tonight. I'm sitting here (silently) listening to the finalists pitch their idea to our judges (Ashmeet Siddana and Sujit Panigrahi). (We have some strong NDAs here; so I really can't tell you how rigorously Ashmeet and Sujit are examining the plans, but the presenter is actually sweating!).

We have the Audi round this evening (8 pm, BITS auditorium). Exciting times ahead!

(Ok. Presenter has finished his presentation (Soltec, from VIT Pune). Sujit is asking more questions. Prototypes being handed out. Winning Conquest 2007 sure won't be easy!)

Off to take a snap of the team...

Back!

Think the NDA requires me to take permission to post a snap. Damn. Will post again soon.

PS: In other news, we had two Workshops yesterday (On "Starting up and taking the leap" by Kunwar Sachdev (Principal, SuKam Power Solutions) and Manish Vij (CEO, Quasar Media) and on "Scaling up in a globalized world". And were we elated with the response! More than 150 participants, and a Q&A session that would have lasted forever, if we hadn't cut it short! Lots of interest in knowing about valuations, starting up after college, and climbing Mt. Everest (That's Ashmeet. The first BITSian to do so!)

Is entrepreneurship finally catching in India?

2007-03-13T22:23:00.002+05:30

It started with a simple observation: Finalists for Conquest 2007 include just one IIT entry, and one BITS entry. All the rest are either from outside India, or from small/local colleges.

This set us thinking: does this mean that entrepreneurship, and the culture of writing biz-plans are finally catching up in India?

Surprisingly (to me), the answer seems to be a yes!

The observation above led us to look at a few other changes we've seen over the past few months. To point out just a few:

CEL has a long tradition of helping other colleges/Universities set up entrepreneurial cells of their own. We were used to requests from IIT/NITs (considered to be among the cream of Indian engineering education).

Increasingly, however, we're receiving more requests from small colleges. College of Engineering, Pune; a few from Mumbai, a small college in Mysore, some colleges in Calcutta... a pretty nationwide phenomenon, IMO.

Another indicator: Conquest has a Torchbearer program, where we invite students from colleges across the country to act as brand ambassadors in their college and spread the word. The interest in this program has increased. Not linearly with previous years, but exponentially.

And yes, I can't forget to mention the interest in Stimulus, a little business simulation game we built over the past year. Unimaginably, the Times of India finds it important enough to mention it in its nationwide supplement, Education Times. Yes, I'm surprised, and we're delighted!

I could go on and on, but I think the point is well made. Increasingly, entrepreneurship is becoming a viable and attractive career option for many.

(Do you/your college plan to set foot on this journey too? leave a comment, or talk to us at info@celbits.org. Welcome to the party!)

The Story behind the growth

2007-02-18T17:24:00.000+05:30

I was recently worried about the way cellular industry is taking course in India. We are proud of the double digit growth and the gravity defying rise in the number of users. But for the discerning customer long waits to talk to Customer Care can be frustrating. And if at the end of a 6 minutes 42 seconds wait you have an executive who is even more clueless than you...

Are the telcos cutting costs by sacrificing basic requirements? They don't seem to be lacking on publicity. When a new player entered the Rajasthan circle, large hoardings loomed everywhere. But, when you look for meaningful information, all you get is a bumbling salesperson who misinforms you.

I belong to the school of though that quality should never be sacrificed. Not ven for those dazzling numbers. but then probably I don't need to report to my shareholders each quarter!

Why no products?

2007-01-23T02:30:00.000+05:30

My friend recently bombarded me with scary statements like " Remain in service and you sure shall remain the sweatshop of the world".

I shall disagree to him on both the points. I don't even need to present my point. His was an alarmist statement (hey do i add the views expressed are the personal views of the author. CEL doesn't associate itself... :D) . But, it led me to think on a tangential line.

Why do all our start-ups are in the services sector? Why can't we think outside the jugaad we rig up to improve services? Can't we develop a new product? Do we always remain the cost-cutting destination? People more knowledgeable and intelligent have brooded on this. I do not know why and why not we are not great guns in products. (Check out Ittiam though.)

I just know unless we get into product development, the alarmists might be true. And please do not make the mistake of overlooking the rural market. Glamor no, but potential yes. Recent developments have made me believe that probably the concrete jungle is not where I would hunt. Visit me to know why.

Open source in Idea development

2007-01-19T20:54:00.001+05:30

Open source ! The revolution that is gripping today's world, influencing everything from economics, research & development to social structure and culture. It is interesting to observe how the entire process of developing an idea into a reality has changed with the arrival of open source culture. To me the most important influence has been with respect to the remarkable pace at which ideas are being developed in the open source model.

There was a time when the most priced possession of an intelligent animal was considered to be the ideas that he spawns. "Only an idea can change the world, the rest are details…" goes the most common view of the uncommon. But what the open source revolution has shown is that the changes that we see in the world around us are less because of the ideas and more because of the effort that goes into its development & execution. With more and more people freely interacting with their ideas, the levels of scrutiny an idea must pass and the quality of the developed product has been on the rise more rapidly than ever before.

But is it really necessary to make an idea available to everyone to develop it? Aren't companies spending big bucks on their "secret projects" aimed at introducing revolutionary products and pulling the market shares from under their competitors? Is open source really more profitable than closed door competition?

There are a few key issues one should look at here with respect to idea development:

Open source works only when there are enough people around who already know what you are talking about. Otherwise its just more people trying to work out the basics and that ain't any better than one person going about it unless you think you are less suited for the job. And if they indeed are better, then you're out of the picture (^_^)

Open source adds huge value to evaluation of an idea because of the diversity in experience and expertise of the people who might visit your idea. It speeds up the process and also increases the efficiency of assessment. Imagine yourself having to search loads of data on net, speak to I don't know how many people indirectly getting the info you need and trying to figure out all goods and wrongs of your idea.

The biggest advantage of open source however lies in the number of people it gets enthusiastic about your idea. Everyone prefers to contribute in an effort which they are familiar with then some unknown guy working on a miracle idea. Also, if your idea reaches an expert, then so would have tons of other ideas. So they would prefer to collaborate with someone who is already working on the idea if they like it than dumping you and working on it on their own. So put your fears aside about your idea being stolen ! There is nothing like stealing an idea, it only means that the other guy worked better than you in developing the idea, in which case you would have been more likely to be overtaken by some competitor if you kept the idea all to yourself and started up with it.

However, there is one area of concern to all those people who feel open source is it, for your next big idea:

Evaluate the advantages you'll get out of open sourcing your idea before putting it on board a bigger group. If you feel that you are not clear about the idea or unsure about your indispensability in the implementation of the idea, then consider if you really want to go ahead with developing it on your own or are willing to tip it off to some other guy and look at focusing on your area of expertise.

[For BITSians: open sourcing is like opening a PS station… It's profitable to get more people onboard provided you are assured of your booty ! If not, then you need to sit and evaluate if its still profitable to hold your contact and do an internship next summer instead. If not, tip it off to your friends and increase your balance in the favour bank.]

Amruth

The coming of age

2007-01-14T23:15:00.000+05:30

BITS is pulsating with a fervor which old timers say is new. Entrepreneurship is in.

Starting up is high on priority lists. I see fellow first year students reading thick tomes on entrepreneurship. To see the intent to chuck out old notions and accept the once taboo E word is inspiring. There are really good ideas and whats more they are actually making the transition from the drawing board to reality.

CDS is one such start up which shows a healthy trend of non-tech start ups. CDS may make use of technology to be competitive but their core competency lies elsewhere. And its a bunch of students barely midway through their graduation! Talk to the CDS guys and the enthusiasm is contagious.

Another thing which we find very heartening is the short time in which the idea transforms into something tangible. Agreed that sometimes an idea needs to be undergo the test of time. But, the faster you move out in the real world, faster you can adapt.

Our experience is that most of these ideas crop up during competitions. Initially, brains are racked just because an entry is to be filed. And then it takes off really well. You look back and it thrills you how an idea from a general late night session in your hostel could go this far.

Look out! We have arrived.

LinkedIn: A Survivor's Guide

2007-01-09T14:07:00.000+05:30

Over the past few days, quite a few people want to know about this thing called LinkedIn. Here's an attempt to help. These are really a bunch of my own experiences, so feel free to add your own in the comments.

(This page is also mirrored at http://lastparadox.blogspot.com/2007/01/linkedin-survivors-guide.html)
LinkedIn is a nice way to connect, simply because:

It already has a lot of people registered (especially business & tech people, mostly in North America, but now increasingly in India too)
These people make it a point to update their profile frequently, so you know when someone changes their contact addresses, or jobs etc.
You get to meet a lot of new people through your existing connections

Using LinkedIn efficiently
Adding existing Connections

In order to meet new people, you need to let LinkedIn know who you know already.

So you need to add connections. You can Search for the person you wish to add, and then Click "I know..." below "Contact Directly", on the profile view.
In order to add any connection directly, you need to know the contact's email address. (This of course needn't be their login email address. LinkedIn will simply mail in to any address you give.)

The far easier way to add connections is to import your existing address book (from Outlook, gmail, yahoo etc). Go to Contacts>Other Contacts>Add More Contacts to do this.
Once your address book is imported, you can see which of your contacts are already on LinkedIn. It's a great idea to ask them all to join your network. Once they have, you can benefit from their connections.

You can also invite directly people from your alma mater (if you are part of the alumni assoc's group on LinkedIn), and classmates, to join your network.

Now, for the interesting part: making new contacts.

Making New Contacts

When you look at a profile, you see a link "Connections". Click that to see that person's friends. Find someone interesting? Click on that person's name to see his profile; and then click "Get Introduced" to get introduced through your common friend. If you have more than one person you know in common, you could choose any as an introduction.

In my experience, it helps if the person you choose knows the target very well. That way, he'll not mind introducing you.

Also, avoid asking for introductions beyond the 1st degree. That is do not look at A>B>C>D if you know A and want to know D. Lots of folks (including me) refuse such requests right away.

Also, a word of caution: The free version of LinkedIn allows at most 5 open introductions at any time. So be careful when you make such requests. Of course, you can withdraw invitations, but what could be ruder?

What next? Contacting connections, of course.

Contacting Connections

LinkedIn is different from a lot of "social networking" sites in the sense that it doesn't have a way to contact users through the Web (not really. It does, and it's called "InMail", but it ain't free, and I haven't used it).

Instead, you simply mail (email) your contact. This is quick, easy (since we're used to it), and most importantly, private.

Other Issues
Dealing with Invitations

Let's say someone sends you a request to join his network. In my opinion, you should accept it only if

You know the person in real life
Or, someone you know has introduced him

Keep in mind that someday, someone might ask you to introduce them to this person. Are you sure you know this guy well enough to do so? (And it's very very rude to "disconnect" later!)

Updating Profiles
The more up-to-date your profile is, the better it is. It is worthwhile to spend some time working out the headline (the description just below your name). Remember, this is the only thing that people see when you are listed as a connection on someone's profile. Would you like to connect to someone with a headline like yours? If yes, you're good.

Getting visibilty/credibilty

Opt for a public profile. This is indexed by Google, hence highly visible. It should, like a bikini, hide more than it reveals. Just enough to make the right kind of people want to connect.
Also put this profile link (like http://www.linkedin.com/in/chinmayk) on your email signature for a few days, to announce you're on LinkedIn.
Write, and request recommendations: these are like live ads on your friend's profiles. Warning: Use judiciously. You don't want to "recommend" all 50 of your connections!(And it's very very rude to delete them!)
Write blog entries like this one, with your public profile ( http://www.linkedin.com/in/chinmayk)! (I know, sad joke)

That's All Folks!

I will update this post if I think of anything else. Want to know anything specific? Drop in a comment, or mail to chinmay007 AT gMail dot com.

The I-Factor

2006-12-02T02:50:00.000+05:30

Any entrepreneur swears by this. Ideas are the currency for them. (Forgive me, sounds eerily similar to " ATP is the energy currency in all cells". Blame this on....)

To ideate is one of the best things that one can do.Having said that, the perils of not translating them into concrete actions are just too dangerous to be overlooked.

An idea might be a business opportunity or even to create the opportunity.But, trust us do not ever sleep on your idea. NEVER . First Mover Advantage is one thing that can decide whether you are a Google or a Windows Live!

Saint-Exupery is one person whom I love to quote, so please grant me the liberty. Thank You.

A pile of rocks ceases to be a rock when somebody contemplates it with the idea of a cathedral in mind

-Antoine de Saint-Exupery

The Farewell

2006-11-30T05:01:00.000+05:30

C'not is a lot more than just a cluster of shops. It has packed in more in terms of memories in my one semester than anything(except the hostel maybe).One such beautiful memory shall remain etched in my mind forever(cliche as it may sound, but some things are ineffable if not for cliches).

CEL bid goodbye to its outgoing members : Abhilash,Kavya, Udki and Uzma. All great people and legends in their own right.Schlum,INSEAD,Cypress Semiconductors...name a accomplishment on campus and they have achieved it. I am so proud to be a part of CEL.

They have done so much for CEL that one is led to believe that maybe there will be a void.But as Abhi rightly said

There is no void

Maybe we need to rise to the occasion and try to fill in. We will miss them. That is what inspires me the most to work harder.

And as one page's title at our website says " the gods that they were.. "

The Dilbert Blog: Good News Day

2006-11-20T12:21:00.000+05:30

The Dilbert Blog: Good News Day
I love this:

"Just because no one has ever gotten better from Spasmodic Dysphonia before doesn’t mean I can’t be the first. So every day for months and months I tried new tricks to regain my voice. I visualized speaking correctly and repeatedly told myself I could (affirmations). I used self hypnosis. I used voice therapy exercises. I spoke in higher pitches, or changing pitches. I observed when my voice worked best and when it was worst and looked for patterns. I tried speaking in foreign accents. I tried “singing” some words that were especially hard.

The day before yesterday, while helping on a homework assignment, I noticed I could speak perfectly in rhyme. Rhyme was a context I hadn’t considered. A poem isn’t singing and it isn’t regular talking. But for some reason the context is just different enough from normal speech that my brain handled it fine.

Jack be nimble, Jack be quick.
Jack jumped over the candlestick.

I repeated it dozens of times, partly because I could. It was effortless, even though it was similar to regular speech. I enjoyed repeating it, hearing the sound of my own voice working almost flawlessly. I longed for that sound, and the memory of normal speech. Perhaps the rhyme took me back to my own childhood too. Or maybe it’s just plain catchy. I enjoyed repeating it more than I should have. Then something happened.

My brain remapped.

My speech returned.

Not 100%, but close, like a car starting up on a cold winter night. And so I talked that night. A lot. And all the next day. "

INSEAD. And Beyond

2006-11-19T22:11:00.000+05:30

Udki (Uday Kiran Medisetty to those who ask him for his name) has just obtained an internship at INSEAD School of Business, France. (As his Practice School station).

We're really happy for you, Udki. We're sure that you'll add immense value to INSEAD, just as you did to CEL. (Udki has been almost singlehandedly brought Conquest to an established, national scale. As Senior Vice President, he's also been responsible for building a vision for a CEL thatwe're proud to chase.)

Congratulations Udki... here's hoping to a happy and productive stint at INSEAD. And wherever else ability might take you!

PS: There are two other "happy news" announcements to be made. Any guesses are welcome until we decide who gets the honor to blog about them!