'Networking is the Key to Become Successful Entrepreneurs' Industry stalwarts, who attended the event, talked about how they overcame their challenges to disrupt the market with their unique ideas

By Komal Nathani

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IIT Kanpur

In an attempt to kindle the entrepreneurship spirit within students, IIT-Kanpur recently held its annual event, "eSummit 2017'. The three-day event was packed with a variety of activities, including seminars and talk sessions where successful businessmen shared their entrepreneurial experience with students and addressed their queries.

Several workshops and competitions were arranged to groom young minds in building their own ventures.

Workshop on Networking Skills

"Seeding the Impact' was the theme of this year's summit, which trained students on their networking skills.

IIt-Kanpur's annual event has always been popular and successful in encouraging students to come up with the best of innovative ideas.

And, this year too, the institute has brought great speakers to guide students in their pursuits.

Director's Vision

IIT-K Director Dr. Indranil Manna while addressing the gathering talked about his endeavour to make the institute on a par with MIT in terms of entrepreneurial and incubation opportunities.

Manna said the INR 300-crore research park has facilities to provide students co-working spaces and other amenities.

Expert Speak

Industry stalwarts like Sanjeev Agarwal, BVR Mohan Reddy, Sandeep Aggarwal, Arvind Pradhan and Sumit Dutta Chowdhury talked about how they overcame their challenges and disrupted the market with their unique ideas.

Co-founder of Helion Ventures Sanjeev Agarwal stressed that the present scenario was appropriate for young individuals to play with their ideas. Citing the example of Elon Musk, he drew home the point how the youths were disrupting the well-established industries in the world.

BVR Mohan Reddy (Chairman, Cyient) emphasized on how entrepreneurship was the need of the hour as he relived his memories at IIT-Kanpur. He suggested that Indian economy should generate 100 million jobs in the next 10 years and predicted that 60% of them would be from start-ups and small scale businesses.

Founder of ShopClues Sandeep Aggarwal motivated budding entrepreneurs saying, "It takes time to establish a product and your enterprise and then to take it to the next level. A good product is never done. You strive your entire lifetime to improve it."

The workshops saw an overwhelming participation from students and guests. Most of them were overenthusiastic to get their "dualfies' or "groupfies' clicked with the man, who spoke on "Design Thinking', — Prakash Maheshwari from Focus Adventures India.

More than 1,500 people attended the summit. Like every year, students felt benefitted from the opportunity of listening to the who's who of the business world, from whom they gained some fascinating insight into the art of doing business.

Komal Nathani

Former Correspondent, Entrepreneur Asia Pacific

A firm believer of hard work and patience. Love to cover stories that hold a potential to change the momentum of business world. Currently, a part of all-women web team of Entrepreneur’s Asia Pacific edition to jig the wheel of business journalism!

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