IIT-Hyderabad webinar gives clarion call to pursue big dreams

Hyderabad: The Indian Institute of Technology Hyderabad (IIT-H) E-Cell has successfully organised 'E-Summit 2k21 – A Pragmatic Advent' on January 22-24.

It is one of the biggest entrepreneurship conclaves in the country. The summit aimed to inspire and educate students, corporates inclined towards entrepreneurship and encourage early entrepreneurs to take and manage bigger risks.

A series of talks and panel discussions have been scheduled to delve deeper into the idea of innovation itself, and what a start-up needs to flourish in the market.

Highlighting the unique aspects of 'E-Summit 2k21,' Vaibhav Kumar, head – E-Cell, IIT Hyderabad, said, "E-Summit 2k21" has witnessed a completely new perspective of ideas and solutions. Given Covid-19, the summit has been organised virtually with the help IT collaborators. It was a great success with more 1,500 registrations and 300 participants for the panel discussion.

On the first day TN Hari, Saurabh Mukherjea and Anupam Gupta, HR head of Big Basket, addressed the participants. Hari spoke about the importance of asking questions, being crystal clear in the plan and motive of a company and refrain from taking shortcuts, or 'jugaad.'

Saurabh said that modern capitalism is more about collaboration rather than competition. Anupam focused on the importance of originality in thought and a sound mindset, to be successful.

The "Network Table" event was also conducted, wherein several start-ups participated and discussed their ideas with the fellow start-ups and the mentor panel.

The second day, started with an energetic keynote address by Vaibhav Sisinty who stated that automation is the future of digital marketing, and how creativity with automation tools can be used to enhance businesses. Omkar Rai, Director-General of STPI, mentioned that people enmass have shown keenness to adopt technology, and have been working to impart education, banking and medicine, and that Indians have a great zeal towards entrepreneurial ideas.

Speaking about social entrepreneurship, Kiran DM, CEO of ONGC Foundation, stated that social enterprise is a combination of passion and solution, and there is a mind-shift needed to resort to greener means of production and consumption.

The third day began with a fireside chat with CEO of Tekion Jay Vijayan. He gave a lot of interesting insights into how to build a big company through hard work. Jay stated that "I hire people who are smarter than me as it would make me look good as a manager, and make the delegation work easier."

The day also witnessed the most awaited talk by Hansal Mehta, who highlighted the importance of expressing one's true self, in whatever form one feels the best. Hansal observed "In the long run, the instability of being unhappy is worse than the financial uncertainty of following your passion."

The event concluded with a prize distribution ceremony, where the names of the winners of the five competitions conducted across the three days were announced.