IIT KHARAGPUR - GES'11
(post event)
The Global Entrepreneurship Summit was held from 14-16th January 2011 by Entrepreneurship Cell, IIT Kharagpur at IIT Kharagpur. The summit was themed “Empowering the Next Billion”. In accordance with the theme, a series of workshops, guest lectures and panel discussions took place. Besides the theme related events, GES 2011 featured a Startup Camp attended by 15 of India’s most promising startups as well as a VC Panel Discussion on the highly relevant topic “Profit versus Social Responsibility”.
GES 2011 had over 400 participants from across India with several people coming all the way from the hinterland where the buzz of entrepreneurship has not yet permeated to the extent of the metro cities. IIT Kharagpur students also actively participated in the summit. The summit saw coverage in top daily and economic newspapers. The footfall of the summit was over 1000.
GES 2011 saw the climactic conclusion of our B-plan competitions Concipio, Envision, Eclairez, Negocio and Cleantech. The winners of the competitions as well as the startups at the summit got an opportunity to pitch in front of the VC Panel in a typical elevator pitch fashion. Besides this, there was also a Global Entrepreneurship Conference featuring academia from prestigious colleges across the world like the Cambridge University, Babson College and more. The icing over the summit was India’s first National Conference of Entrepreneurship Cells with more than 15 E-cells across India participating.
Eminent personalities like Mr. Kanwal Rekhi, the first Indian to register a company on NASDAQ and one of the founders of TIE, Mr. Amit Raje, Mr. Arjun Sen, Mr. Shankar Maruwada gave guest lectures on their entrepreneurial journeys and also provided mentoring to budding entrepreneurs. There was a panel discussion on “Empowering the Next Billion” with Mr. Irfan Alam, Villgro, OKHAI and EDI participating. Prof. Ajay Dixit held a highly insightful workshop on the benefits and opportunities in social entrepreneurship. In continuation with last year’s theme of Green Energy, we had a talk on “Opportunities in Renewable Energy Sector” given by India Energy Forum and Energy Alternatives India.
Overall, during the run-up to the summit and during the summit, we spread awareness and guidance on entrepreneurship in Kharagpur and beyond. In fact, our Global Entrepreneurship Summit was a follow up to our Entrepreneurship Awareness Drive conducted in 15 cities across India during October 2010. The initial interest created in participants during EAD was further nurtured during GES.
Entrepreneurship Cell, IIT Kharagpur expresses heartfelt thanks to all the students and professors of IIT Kharagpur and other participating colleges as well as to our sponsors, associates and partners without whom an event of this scale would not have been possible.