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The TiE Mumbai Enterprising India annual summit, held on March 4 and 5, 2011, at the NCPA at Nariman Point in south Mumbai, was flagged off by the playing of drums and broadcasting of the inspiring TiE anthem, ‘Chale Chalo – Leading the nation, changing the world’. The event, in its true spirit, encouraged and brought forth successful examples of entrepreneurship from all segments of society viz. youth, women, men, and young children.

On the first day, there was an opening panel with three co-hosts that threw light on the state of entrepreneurship in India, how the country is growing, the immense opportunities in various verticals and tips for aspiring entrepreneurs. Ajay Piramal (pic above, right), Chairman, Piramal Group; Kishore Biyani (pic above, left), Founder and Group CEO, Future Group; and Narendra Murkumbi (pic above, center), MD and Co-founder, Shree Renuka Sugars Ltd, shared their insights with an audience full of young entrepreneurs and aspiring ones. “Build a business that can scale up easily,” said Murkumbi. “An entrepreneur has to be open to course correction along the way.” These were the words of Biyani, who has seen many ups and downs in the building of his successful retail empire.

Piramal encouraged entrepreneurs to grow at about 20 percent year-on-year, keeping in mind the macro-economic conditions in India. In the next session that was tagged ‘Made in India’, Biyani introduced three enterprising Indians actively ‘Serving the Indian Consumer’. These included Anshu Gupta from Goonj, Ashwin Mahesh from Bangalore Traffic, and Sachin Bansal from Flipkart.com. They shared their experiences with the audience. Piramal also hosted an interactive Gurukul session and answered queries of entrepreneurs. The morning drew to a close with a jugalbandi of an entrepreneur’s journey and live music. This was a unique concept received well by the audience.

In the noon, there were educational workshops on the use of Google AdWords and Intuit’s Go-Connect. Sanjeev Bikhchandani’s Gurukul session was hugely successful as the agile founder of online portal naukri.com spoke of spotting the right opportunities in the market and leveraging the ‘first mover’ advantage.

Three market opportunity sessions highlighted the opportunities in the infrastructure, rural and telecom/IT space for entrepreneurs. In the evening, 50 kids (from 12-17 years) took the stage by storm and presented their business ideas. The session was hosted by film maker and entrepreneur Roshan Abbas, who asked a lot of questions to the children in a fun way to gauge their understanding of business. It was conceptualized under TiE’s BizWorld program that focuses on school children.

The Enterprising India Grand Prix session highlighted three startups that have grown from 0-100 crore in less than five years. The Desi Jugaad session brought forth examples of grassroot enterprises that are game changers in their space. Sai Ramakrishna Karuturi, Founder and MD, Karuturi Global, and Satyajit Singh, Founder, Shakti Sudha Industries, shared the stage for this one.

The evening ended with a ‘Meet the Investors’ session where entrepreneurs got a chance to throw their queries at representatives of leading VC funds in the country. Post that, they got a chance to unwind and enjoy a musical evening with performers who have played with R.D. Burman in the yesteryears.

The second day of the summit started with another Made in India session where Piramal introduced Varaprasad Reddy of Shantha Biotechnics, Saumil Majmudar of EduSports, and Maruti Ram of Vision Spring. The following session discussed ‘Technology underpinning Enterprising India’ with speakers from TCS and Microsoft on the panel. The afternoon saw angel investors throwing light on women-led enterprises and the viability for investment in them and their growth potential. This was an initiative led by TiE Stree Shakti. There was also a workshop on Google Enterprise. The market opportunities session focused on building a business in the retail space.

The grand finale of the summit saw K.V. Kamath, Non-Executive Chairman of ICICI Bank, introducing three ‘Made in India’ entrepreneurs in the inclusive development space. These comprised Anurag Gupta of A Little World, Sudesh Menon of WaterLife, and R Elango of Kuthambakkam village in Tamil Nadu. The final session saw Rajiv Bajaj, MD, Bajaj Auto, enthralling the audience with his inputs of yoga and homeopathy and their application in the world of business.

All in all, the summit was packed with both inspiration and action, thus, fulfilling TiE’s goal of acting as a catalyst for the entire entrepreneurial ecosystem in the country.

Tags:
Enterprising India, summit, TIE, TiE Stree Shakti