The Entrepreneurship Cell
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The Entrepreneurship Cell, IIT Bombay known popularly as E-Cell is a non-profit student organization which provides a support system for budding entrepreneurs. The Cell not only motivates people to opt for entrepreneurship but also provides necessary resources to do so.
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[edit] History
Despite the fact that a student's mind is forever buzzing with ideas and overflowing with creativity, entrepreneurship is not one of the conventional options that you would expect to find in the list of career choices of a fresh graduate. A conscious effort hence was made, by various organizations in IIT Bombay, to promote entrepreneurship and innovation in the campus. The initiation of this entrepreneurship "revolution" in IIT Bombay can be traced back to Techfest 1999, The Annual Technological Festival of IIT Bombay.
Enterprise, a part of Techfest 1999, introduced an average IITian to the world of start-ups. It aimed at taking a participant through what it takes to build an idea to a money spinning venture- from a dream to a mission. The event comprised six lectures and a panel discussion to motivate the students to venture into this unexplored realm. Enterprise '99 had just set the stage for the entrepreneurship movement that was to follow.
After the motivation created by this workshop at Techfest 1999, a need was felt to carry on this process to a stage of implementation by providing a platform where teams could bring their plans for critical evaluation by an experienced panel of venture capitalists, entrepreneurs and representatives from academia and industry. Eureka! provided this very platform and also helped the team realize the shortcomings in their approach.
Eureka! 1999 was a direct consequence and a follow up to Enterprise. Crossroads, the institute's career fair, provided the platform for Eureka to be launched successfully. Eureka, a business plan competition, modeled on the MIT 50K contest, received enthusiastic participation with over 50 teams submitting their executive summaries. The standard of the entries was such that the winners actually went on to sell their idea.
Eureka! 2000, the second edition of the contest, which was part of Techfest 2000, was a bigger success than its predecessor. The strength of participation grew to over a hundred. The teams went through three elimination rounds. The winner, myzus.com went on to get funding and is now valued over six million dollars.
A need thus was felt to have an organization dedicated to promoting entrepreneurship in the institute. Prafulla Krishna took the initiative to launch E-Cell as an autonomous students’ activity - an attempt to surface the latent enterprising spirit of the venturesome IITians. The final proposal for E-Cell was submitted on December 20, 1999. This is how E-Cell was born.
[edit] E-Cell over the years
[edit] E-Cell Jan 2000- Sep 2000 [E-Cell 00]
The first team of E-Cell organized Avenues on August 12, 2000. Avenues aimed at inspiring more creative ideas among the students. The guest list included Mr. Kanwal Rekhi, Mr. Dewang Mehta, Mr. Shailesh Gandhi, Mr.Venkatesh. Avenues enlightened the participants about various issues from the impact of the new cyber laws, the new economy to the reasons behind the failure of startups. Each of these topics was given a comprehensive treatment and all aspects were covered in detail.
Team Spirits happened on 23rd September 2000. Team Spirits, as the name suggests, helped the budding entrepreneur understand how to build a balanced team with useful insights from Mr. Kalyan Kumar Banerjee (MindTree Consulting). The event also had a workshop on ESOPs with talks by HR managers from a number of companies like HLL, Wipro, Rediff, Reliance, among others.
[edit] E-Cell Sep 2000- Mar 2001 [E-Cell 01]
Eureka! 2001 was a huge success with participation from all over the globe. Eureka! came to be recognized as one of the biggest competition of its kind in Asia. Tibraw won the first prize.
[edit] E-Cell 2001-2002 [E-Cell 02]
Eureka! 2002 got bigger with around 120 colleges from all over the globe participating and the total number of entries going up to 200. Theronova from Duke University emerged as the winners.
[edit] E-Cell 2002-2003 [E-Cell 03]
Eureka! 2003 helped its winners by providing them with services like Free Incubation, Free Quality testing, Free Web services, Free Chartered accountant, Free Legal consultancy etc. The total cash prizes grew to Rs. 1,00,000. The first prize was won by Whizlabs Software.
[edit] E-Cell 2003-2004 [E-Cell 04]
The finals for the Eureka! 2004 competition are scheduled on 9th May 2004. The winners were Rhizo Technologies from IIT Bombay.
[edit] E-Cell 2004-2005 [E-Cell 05]
With cash prizes worth Rs. 4,00,000, Eureka! 2005 only grew bigger. The winners were also given direct entry into the Global Entrepolis @ Singapore. Convis Technologies from IIT Bombay emerged as the winners. They are currently being incubated in SINE, IIT Bombay.
[edit] E-Cell 2005-2006 [E-Cell 06]
E-Cell organized E-Summit for the first time this year. E-Summit was conceptualised to motivate and educate people about entrepreneurship and serve as a meeting ground for Corporate and young budding entrepreneurs from distinguished institutions across the country. Designed as a 2 days event, it included lectures by high profile speakers, panel discussions, focused workshops, case study analysis and challenging competitions among other attractions.
Ideaz became a Pan IIT event involving all the IITs. Ideaz 2005 was designed to help students generate ideas and begin building a team.
[edit] E-Cell 2006-2007 [E-Cell 07]
Summer Founders Program was conducted for IIT Bombay students who wished to stay back during the summers and work on their startup. 4 teams gave their final presentation on 10th June 2006. One of the teams received a funding of Rs. 50,000.
Ideaz 2006 went one step ahead of its predecessors and offered a 15 day mentoring to all finalists to make the business ideas fit for Eureka! 2006. The 15 day mentoring helped eventually with the Eureka! 2006 winner being an Ideaz 2006 finalist.
Eureka! 2006 was opened to Working Professionals as well for the first time. Of the 500 entries received, 40 were shortlisted to the second stage where they were provided intensive mentoring by mentors and entrepreneurs to refine their business idea. After incorporating refinements to the plan , the teams submitted the modified B-Plan. 8 teams were shortlisted which made presentations in front of a distinguished Jury Panel on February 4th 2007. The winners were "Mobile Pulpers", a team from IIT Madras. The winners were given a cash prize of Rs 2,00,000. A team from IIM Ahmedabad finished second.
E-Summit 2006 was a one day event held on 10th December 2006 and was clubbed with Eureka's Mentors Meet. E-Summit is an attempt by The Entrepreneurship Cell to motivate and educate people about entrepreneurship and serve as a meeting ground for Corporate and young budding entrepreneurs across the country. E-Summit 2006 included focused workshops, panel discussion, networking and team building opportunities for all participants.
E-Cell 07 also marked the launch of the Global Entrepreneurship Network (www.genportal.org). GEN, as it is popularly called, is a round the year online support system for budding entrepreneurs. GEN was initiated by E-Cell, IIT Bombay and it today has 8 network partners.
GEN provides budding entrepreneurs with opportunities for Mentoring, Funding, Incubation. GEN also helps you connect to prospective business partners through the Team Builder. The Events section keeps you updated with details of entrepreneurial events from across the globe. Apart from these, GEN also has a Idea Zone wherein you can submit your ideas for the world to see and buy. GEN also features a forum devoted to the various aspects of entrepreneurship.
E-Cell 07 also saw the launch of INCorpora - The Business Club of IIT Bombay. The idea is to create a Business Society in IIT Bombay so that an IITB student could get a perspective of the various aspects of management and business.
[edit] Present Initiatives
- Eureka! - The International B-Plan competition
- Ideaz - The Pan IIT Business Idea Compeititon
- E-Summit - The Nationwide Entrepreneurship drive
- Global Entrepreneurship Network
- INCorpora - The Business Club of IIT Bombay
