Pratyay 2017 - Ideas That Inspire - IIM Shillong

An idea can change the world. Ideas shape the course of history. All achievements and earned riches have their beginning in an idea. An idea is the essence of a start-up and entrepreneurship. With this thought, i-Cube, the Entrepreneurship Cell of IIM Shillong, named their event as “Pratyay” – Ideas that Inspire, conceptualised to celebrate the spirit of entrepreneurship. Pratyay shall serve as a pre-cursor to EmergE, the Annual Flagship Entrepreneurship Festival of IIM Shillong, organised by the E-Cell. The inaugural edition of the event consisted of the following sub-events – Guest Speaker Session – Pratyay hosted Mr. Prashant Lingam, Founder & CEO of Bamboo House India, a social enterprise with a portfolio of Bamboo Housing, Bamboo furniture, innovative scrap utilities and various others. It has clients ranging from the US Government to India’s state governments.

Mr. Prashant’s narration of his journey, struggle and success have not only captivated the audience and given them practical insight into the reality of the entrepreneurship world but truly inspired them, invoked thought and served as an emotional boost. As one student puts it, “Mr. Prashant has rekindled my dream of creating my own business.”

        

Case Study Competition - Sponsored by Bamboo House India for prize money of Rs. 50,000, the event saw participation from various B-Schools like IIM Lucknow, JBIMS and many premiere undergraduate colleges in the country. Mr. Prashant Lingam, Founder CEO of Bamboo House India played jury to the competition. Donning Social Entrepreneur/CEO hats, the participants suggested innovative, out of the box yet feasible solutions to the Judge. Mr. Prashant also opened a Live Project opportunity to which the batch showed great enthusiasm.

Model Investor Summit -  The event comprised of multiple Ideators presenting their business ideas to a panel of Model Investors who after carefully analysing their proposals would invest Virtual Money after deliberation with their Consultation Panel. The best ideator and investor win. The event, with a prize money of Rs. 20,000, witnessed participation from various colleges nation-wide with the winners being from IIT Kharagpur. The Jury for this event was Mr. Shankar Subramoney, a Management Consultant and an adjunct faculty with IIM Bangalore, visiting faculty with IIM Shillong and Udaipur.

“In Their Shoes” – It is an event of Entrepreneurship Rebuttal wherein the participants tell us what would they have done to prevent the given company from failing if they were the CXO of the company. With heated but healthy arguments and debates by strategists, the event was challenging yet fun. The Jury included Mr. Shankar Purbey and Mr. Harsh Samalia, Operations and Strategy lecturers at IIM Shillong respectively.

Bonfire Night – The celebration concluded with the announcement of winners by the Jury, post which, the curious and enthusiastic students interacted informally with Mr. Prashant Lingam over Bonfire, Chai and Pakode, on the starry full-moon night. The Quadrangle of the campus was filled with great participation from the batch, and the air – with the spirit of entrepreneurship.

  #Pratyay2017 gave immense satisfaction to the organising team as it is our first step towards social and sustainable entrepreneurship and it witnessed more-than-expected participation, quality work and appreciation of the entire batch. The goal of i-Cube, The Entrepreneurship Cell, simply put, is to foster active entrepreneurship in the college and convert ideas to reality, as we at IIM Shillong aren’t just dreamers but doers!     ------------------ About the Author: Sameera Boyinapalli, Member, Entrepreneurship Cell, IIM Shillong