Greater Noida gets Centre of Excellence for Entrepreneurship at BIMTECH in partnership with NEN and the Wadhwani Foundation
Greater Noida February 7, 2015
A Centre of Excellence for Entrepreneurship has been set up at the Birla Institute of Management Technology (BIMTECH) campus in partnership with National Entrepreneurship Network (NEN) and the Wadhwani Foundation to promote entrepreneurship among students of several dozen management and engineering schools located in the Knowledge Park in Greater Noida.
The Centre for Excellence launched by Mr Ajay Goel, Vice President-Government, Industry and Academia Relations, Wadhwani Foundation and BIMTECH Director Dr Harivansh Chaturvedi at the BIMTECH campus will help bring the much needed ecosystem of Mentors, Angel Investors, Venture Capitalists and Support Services needed by budding entrepreneurs to test ideas, tweak business plans and to move pilot projects into scalable businesses.
"The Wadhwani Center of Excellence will accelerate creation of entrepreneurs from a large pool of budding entrepreneurs from engineering and business schools as well as small and growing businesses in and around Greater Noida." said Mr Ajay Goel, Vice President--Government, Industry and Academia Relations, Wadhwani Foundation.
"Through partnership with NEN and Wadhwani Foundation, the existing Centre for Innovation and Entrepreneurship at BIMTECH gets closer to its ambition of creating and implementing entrepreneurship capacity building programs for students, alumni and early stage start-ups in the Knowledge Park," says BIMTECH Director, Dr Harivansh Chaturvedi.
The Knowledge Park at Greater Noida, with 60 Colleges and 6 Universities, is a learning hub for nearly 100,000 students with a potential to grow their student base to 500,000 by end of this decade.
The centre aims to empower job seekers with ideas, passion and entrepreneurial skills with knowledge and experience of its network to become job creators as they sow the seeds of successful businesses.
"A series of programs will be designed and delivered by the Centre to build knowledge, provide mentoring and open up networking opportunities. The centre will also serve as a link between industry, successful entrepreneurs and the mentees," says Dr Abha Rishi, Chairperson of BIMTECH's Centre for Innovation and Entrepreneurial Development that also runs the Birla Incubation Centre.
The Advisory board members of Centre for Innovation and Entrepreneurial Development Mr Tim Mathews, MD, Flair Capital; Mr Sanket Sinha, Vice President, Asia Capital; Mr Gopal Mondal, Director Finance, IDFC Foundation; Ms Prity Khastgir, Tech Corp Legal pledged their support to this new initiative through mentoring, funding and access to knowledge bank.
A 1988 BIMTECH alumnus Mr Alok Gupta who founded of Pyramid Cyber Security & Forensic said that BIMTECH alumni with nearly 50 identified entrepreneurs, strives to encourage budding entrepreneurs through mentoring and exposing them to their network of customers, vendors, bankers, marketing and legal experts.
On the occasion an Entrepreneurial Festival organised by BIMTECH students was also inaugurated. The week-long festival aims at piloting innovative idea based business ventures that helps imbibe real life entrepreneurial experience under the watchful eyes of faculty, alumni and industry representatives.
The festival-Udhyami-gives an opportunity to learn and test basics of entrepreneurship through several simulated exercises, experts evaluating and challenging ideas all the way up to pitching for funding, and testing market acceptability and scalability.
About Wadhwani Foundation
Founded in 2000 by Dr. Romesh Wadhwani, the Foundation's primary mission is economic acceleration in emerging economies. The Foundation is driving economic growth in India and other Asian countries through large-scale initiatives in job creation and skill development. To achieve this the Foundation has launched five high impact Initiatives in India, with the goal of creating 25 million jobs in the next 5 years.
For job creation, Wadhwani Foundation established the National Entrepreneurship Network (NEN) in 2003. NEN has built a strong network with 600 colleges, 4000 mentors and 3200 faculty in India that continue to inspire, educate and support emerging entrepreneurs. Thousands of practicing entrepreneurs and startups are also supported through NEN's Entrepreneur Academy www.nenonline.tv that features hundreds of short videos from experienced entrepreneurs, angels, VCs along with dozens of longer video courses and blog posts. Since inception, NEN has resulted in 2,000 new startups with 12,000+ direct and 50,000+ indirect jobs and is now tracking 1,500+ new companies each year.
Other Initiatives of Wadhwani Foundation include Opportunity Network for Disabled (OND) aimed at mainstreaming the educated disabled into sustainable high quality corporate jobs, Research and Innovation Network (RIN) aimed at upgrading India's research eco-system by catalyzing 'Centers of Innovations' in partnership with existing research Institutes and Policy which provides data driven research inputs for informed policy actions towards creating a human-capital driven growth economy.
About BIMTECH
Birla Institute of Management Technology (BIMTECH) was established in 1988 under the aegis of the Birla Academy of Art and Culture, and supported by Birla Group of companies. Dr (Mrs) Sarala Birla, chairperson of Birla Academy and Mr B K Birla, chairperson of B K Birla Group of companies are the founders of the business school.
The Board of Governors comprising eminent people from industry is headed by Mrs Jayashree Mohta, Vice Chairperson, Birla Academy of Art and Culture, Kolkata.
BIMTECH's fully residential campus is a mini India with students from almost all states of India, and also from other countries. It is this mix of nationalities, cultural backgrounds, academic and professional experiences that make BIMTECH one of the most exciting and enriching business schools in the country. Bimtech's long held belief that global managers should have cross cultural training has become a practice across the globe today.
BIMTECH's highly conducive academic environment includes: learning from experienced academicians with rich industry experience, interaction with strategists from industry and professionals from manufacturing and services industry, exposure to the international universities and firms, and a strong, globally dispersed alumni network.
The institute ranks among the Top 10 Private B-Schools listings announced by CNBC-TV18, Business Today, MBAUniverse, National HRD Network and People Matters among others.