Entrepreneurship is the kindled spirit of innovating and exploring with unmatched perseverance, passion and zeal. And at IIM Raipur, you find many a kindred spirit. With the backing of the Consulting and Entrepreneurship Club, the Entrepreneurship Culture at IIM Raipur has blossomed over the years. A major focus area of the club is to stimulate the spirit of entrepreneurship amongst the students by providing a platform for interaction with luminaries in this area and also resources to help them pursue their goal. One huge step in this regard is the headway into the incubation center. This would help in further promoting students as well as the local community to fearlessly jump into their pool of ideas and surface with the pearl amongst the ideas. The support provided by the incubation centre would enable them to take risk - which is a trademark of every successful entrepreneur.
“I have not failed. I’ve just found 10,000 ways that won’t work.” – Thomas Edison
Many events are organized to unearth, applaud and celebrate the ideas, the spirit and the zeal of the Entrepreneurs. One of them was Samaadhan – the social B-plan competition. With the theme of “Earn, Learn and Return”, it saw participations from the future game-changers of the world. Many innovative solutions to the grappling problems of the world were brought to the table. The Wadhwani NEN Workshop helped the futurepreneurs in recouping and streamlining of their ideas and thus helped in providing the right direction forward.
"A dream you dream alone is only a dream. A dream you dream together is reality." – John Lennon
With this in mind, an invite was sent out to all the entrepreneurs as well as aspiring entrepreneurs to become a part of the interest group, Synergize, where we could learn together, dream together and grow together. In conjunction with that, a free consultation week, "Synergy", was also organized for the benefit of Raipur startups where the students of IIM Raipur brainstormed and stepped into the shoes of that entrepreneur for a day looking at the issues and ideating their possible solutions. It provided a platform for all participants to synergize and use their resources for mutual benefit.
“If you want to go somewhere it is best to find someone who has already been there” – Robert Kiyosaki
Realizing its importance,
"Raipur Startups", was evolved to connect the dreams of the aspiring as well as already established entrepreneurs to help them dream together. It hopes to break the silos in which the entrepreneurs operate and grow together through collaboration and networking. The aim is to provide a common platform for budding entrepreneurs as well as students from different institutes viz-a-viz IIM Raipur, NIT Raipur and HNLU so that they can come together and synergize by leveraging their diverse talents in strategy, consultation, technology and legal aspects thus assisting the entrepreneur community in overcoming their hurdles as well as kick start their career by gaining insights into the real world and harness their classroom learnings.
Aakash is another such initiative which intends to help start-ups and entrepreneurs to build a strong network with like-minded individuals, explore new business opportunities through collaborative learning and address the challenges faced by them with respect to their ventures. Regular Entrepreneur meets are conducted which brings entrepreneurs, aspiring entrepreneurs, students and experts under one roof to talk, debate, and demo & learn. It provides a platform to the industry and academia to debate and deliberate on various issues and to collaborate to create synergies for mutual benefit.
“Success is the sum of small efforts – repeated day in and day out” – Robert Callier
Entrepreneurship is not just about conceiving a business model; rather it is something demonstrated by the students of IIM Raipur day in and day out. Be it their pro-activeness towards helping the underprivileged and vulnerable in the time of their need through Raahat Campaign by Kartavya – the CSR Club, or Sanchayan - the financial outreach program carried out by Finatix to spread financial literacy in the villages of Raipur, the students have shown no less zeal and passion towards every initiative undertaken. Events like Mudit Vriddhi take the students out on the streets of Raipur that enables them to don the hats of an entrepreneur for a day and showcase their creative and marketing skills to multiply their money. It is this entrepreneurial spirit that is driving IIM Raipur each day, each minute, each second towards becoming a world class b-school, a birthplace for futurepreneurs.
As has been rightly said by Christina Canters –
“Everyone has creativity within them. It is just a matter of unlocking that creativity.”