ICFAI celebrates Entrepreneurship Week in Hyderabad

Hyderabad: ICFAI Foundation for Higher Education (IFHE) celebrated the Entrepreneurship Week (EWeek). The week-long event was jointly organised by MACON (The Entrepreneurship Cell of IFHE) and IFHE's IIC (Institutional Innovation Council - an MHRD initiative).

The final day of Entrepreneurship Week had Business Plan Showcase by eight teams across India. Some of the ideas being pitched were app for event management, mobile app connecting consumers to farmers, e-mandi, and platform for blood donors.

The Guest of honor for the valedictory function was Rajiv Vaishnav, Managing Partner at Cornerstone Venture Partners Fund 1, a global Private Investments Fund focused on backing technology ventures across Business Impact and Social Impact models.

Vaishnav said " The difference between an employee and an entrepreneur is that an employee is driven by a Transaction motive first, then moves to Co-creation and finally to Fulfillment An entrepreneur, on the other hand, is driven by the Fulfillment motive first and Co-creation and Transaction follow."

Dr. KS Ratnakar, an internationally renowned pathologist from AIIMS, New Delhi, former Dean at Nizam's Institute of Medical Sciences, Hyderabad and the Director of Academics and Research at Global Medical Education and Research Foundation of Global Hospitals, Hyderabad inaugurated the event recently.

"The best stories are the startup stories!" on the 2nd day of EWeek was about entrepreneurial story telling by two young and dynamic Entrepreneurs - Vensky Krishna - CEO, GrowthCat and Mr. Bramham Peddapothula - Founder, White Apron.

Day 3 of EWeek saw the inauguration of the TiEGrad event: "Education to Entrepreneurship", followed by the MoU exchange between TiE and IFHE. The MoU was signed by Dr. Nandita Sethi, Managing Director, Zen Skillproc Pvt. Ltd. and Charter Member, TiE Hyderabad Chapter and Dr. J Mahender Reddy, Vice Chancellor, IFHE. Dr. Reddy said the strengths of IFHE are its student-centric teaching, socially relevant curriculum, continuous evaluation, summer internship and research by faculty and students.

Earlier, welcoming the audience, Dr. M. Sainath, Dean - Curriculum, Faculty & Entrepreneurship at ICFAI Group said innovation is a mindset and an entrepreneur has to embrace lifelong learning.

A panel discussion on "IoT: The Future is Now" was organized on Day 4. The panel discussion was moderated by Mr. Karthikeyan Natarajan (Karthik), Global Head – Engineering, IoT and Enterprise Mobility at TechMahindra. The panel members included Raj Neravati (Raj), Founder and CEO - Hug Innovations; Mr. Sourav Karmakar – Founder and CEO, Infinos and Nelson Vasanth, CEO – Global Startup Awards – SAARC. Mr. Karthik said there's a huge opportunity in IoT space as cost of sensors has come down significantly.

According to him, budding entrepreneurs should look at getting the right mentorship from Industry. Mr. Karthik urged students to start their entrepreneurial venture before they reach the age of 26-27 years as the risk-taking ability is high at this age.

Social changemakers or social entrepreneurship was the theme for the Entrepreneurship Week on Day 5. Two social changemakers shared their experiences of starting their ventures and trying to bring about a change in the society.

Ms. Kamana Gautam is a nutritionist, social influencer, a certified lactation counselor and a mother of two. She has 27.4k followers on Instagram and spreads the goodness of giving birth the natural way and breastfeeding. Ms. Ekta Viiveck Verma is a social entrepreneur who works toward improving the life of women and men facing difficulties in personal lives.