Aakash 9.0 || Raipur Entrepreneurs' Meet

Aakash 9.0, the 9^th entrepreneurs meet was organized on 15^th October 2016 by the Consulting and Entrepreneurship Club of IIM Raipur with an aim to project to the aspiring entrepreneurs of how an entrepreneur has to take a risk and second to enjoy the success, which would ultimately result in a spirit which serves as a wake-up call for many an ailing industry and economy.

Aakash was started by the Consulting and Entrepreneurship club, IIM Raipur in 2013 with the vision to help start-ups, entrepreneurs and budding entrepreneurs to address the challenges in start-up businesses such as funding, resource allocation, hiring and planning as well as exploring business opportunities and building an entrepreneurial Eco-system in Raipur. It brings entrepreneurs, aspiring entrepreneurs, students and experts under one roof to talk, debate, demo and learn.

The event saw participation from zealous entrepreneurs driven towards their start-up dreams. The keynote speaker for the event was Mr. Anshul Dave, Co-founder Oceans Bridge. Mr. Dave an angel investor himself having funded numerous startups and being on the advisory board of 6 startups with vast experience of mentoring more than 10,000 students gave a deep insight about startup culture in India and abroad. He also discussed about the Tax planning and structure’s importance from startup’s perspective, helping companies setup their organizations abroad. The major takeaways from his profound insights were the importance of setting up the right goals, IPR protection, building relations, PR skills and chasing the correct geography for operations. It was followed by sharing of experiences and insights from founders of various well- established startups. Mr. Malay Jain, founder of Encore Projects Pvt Ltd, an alumnus of IIM Raipur itself shared the prerequisites of being an entrepreneur. Mr. Jain having a land bank network of more than 5000 acres gave an insight about the Agro based business. The session also witnessed yet another personality -  Mr. Kaustubh Dharmadhikary who shared his unique experience about the hurdles faced by an entrepreneur. He said Entrepreneurship comes with a host of challenges. Rewarding challenges, but harsh challenges nonetheless. Experienced entrepreneurs have to deal with this no matter how long they’ve been in business -- trying to establish a brand, adjust to match or exceed the competition and keep your business profitable no matter how many years you’ve been in business.

The session further boosted up when students of IIM Raipur with various budding startups shared their ideas. D Santosh, a PGP 2^nd year student, presented his Business model, REVSMART - a technology start-up, building customized wearable for vehicles, to help college students, employees, and enthusiasts to connect to their vehicle and enhance their driving experience.

In all the meet saw a healthy discussion between the entrepreneurs and the students from the institute, and revolved around the four key challenges faced by a start-up – that of integrating, funding, answering the going concern and tackling attrition. The discussion ended on a high for both the students and the entrepreneurs with the students learning the inner mechanisms, hurdles and subsequently bottlenecks for start-up. Also it provided a platform where the speakers themselves gained newer perspectives from the other visiting entrepreneurs and students.

Lastly the meet ended with an informal yet fruitful interaction between the entrepreneurs and the students with the former sharing their unique business vision and their business models with the budding entrepreneurs. Entrepreneurs were evangelists for their cause and were more than happy to share their hard-won lessons of success, failure, and everything in between. The underlying message: setting out on one's own requires more than courage – it requires a great idea, and lots of work was the take key take away from Aakash 9.0.

SAMAADHAN 2016

“Intent matters. Integrity matters. Courage matters. If you have the three, nothing else matters”

Social entrepreneurship is all about incorporating all three to create business plans that are both feasible and beneficial to the society. To foster this spirit in the minds of young and budding entrepreneurs, the Consulting and Entrepreneurship Club, IIM Raipur organised Samaadhan, a social B-Plan competition which saw people solving real world problems using inquisitive and innovative tools.

In the first round of the event, executive summaries for social B-Plans were invited from all over the country. Out of the numerous entries that were received, including ones from premier institutes like IIM Ahmedabad, ISB Hydrabad, ISB Mohali, IIT Kharagpur, 11 were shortlisted. The second round was held on 10th September in which these teams had to present their b-plan to a panel of esteemed judges which included Mr Rupesh Gupta, an alumnus of IIM Kozhikode and founder of Pro C Education and Mr Sanjay Agarwal, alumnus of IIM Raipur and founder of Raipur Rasayan Udyog.

The business plans that were discussed ranged from providing affordable sanitary napkins to the rural poor to using bio-gas for commercial purposes and reduce pollution in the process. All the teams were very well prepared that made the competition all the more exciting. The judges minutely analysed every aspect of the business plans and asked questions, helping the teams refine their business model along the way. After a gruelling competition and a close fight, it was "Team Gals" from XIMB and "Team Raipur Rangers" from IIM Raipur who emerged victorious.

Consulting Conclave 1.0

As a part of its relentless pursuit to foster the enterprising culture, Consulting and Entrepreneurship Club of IIM Raipur organized Consulting Conclave 1.0 on Saturday, 27^th August, 2016.

In the words of Jay Abraham, “You are surrounded by simple, obvious solutions that can dramatically increase your income, power, influence and success. The problem is, you just don’t see them.” Consultants are the people who are entrusted to solve the above problem.

The objective of the Consulting Conclave was two-fold. Firstly, to bring together corporate leaders and consultants from varied sectors of the industry to discuss relevant themes of consulting along with academicians. Secondly, to conduct workshops to develop key skills needed for a consulting role.

The conclave began with a lecture by Mr V. Niju, Director of Frost & Sullivan, on the topic ‘Consulting in the Indian Perspective’. His words were illustrative of his 12 years of experience in Strategy Consulting and Market Research. He also shared the lessons he learnt while working with clients in India, Middle East, North Africa and Europe.

After that, a thought provoking panel discussion on ‘Consulting to gain Competitive Advantage’ followed. The panel consisted of Mr Rohit Nasa, Pricipal of BMGI India, Mr Ajay Muttreja, Advisor to Chairman, Tecnova India, and Ms Pragya Singh, Vice President of Technopark Advisors. The discussion was moderated by Dr Sanjeev Parashar, Professor, Indian Institute of Management, Raipur.

Mr. Rohit holds an M.B.A. from one of the top European business school, ESADE. He has an experience of 13 years in managing strategy, marketing and operations assignments for Retail, CPG, E-Commerce and Financial sectors with on-ground experience in Asia, Europe and the USA. Ms. Pragya, also, is a management consulting professional with over 12 years of experience in Strategy consulting, commercial due diligence, Business development and Market research in India and Middle East. She holds a Post Graduate Diploma in Management (PGDM) from IIM Ahmedabad and a bachelor’s degree in Chemical engineering from IIT, Delhi.

The event concluded with an engaging lecture by Mr Ajay Muttreja, where he shared his experiences as a consultant. He has 35 years of management experience in India-entry strategy consulting, cross-border public and private sector partnership development, business transformation and complex technology transfers. He has enabled more than 1,000 multi-national companies to achieve transformational growth and long-term success in India.

The guests also took part in an interactive session with the budding entrepreneurs who came to attend the event from all over the country. The young entrepreneurs gained useful insight about how to use consulting as a tool in order to gain competitive advantage in the ferociously competitive start-up landscape. The conclave also presented them a chance to build a wider network.

With the Management Consulting market set to be valued at $350 billion globally, the consulting industry has seen a steep up-shoot in the past few years. The firms globally are using innovative Go-to-Market strategies, surveying and understanding the target market and using out-of-the box brand communication strategies. In this era of growing consulting roles, the students can benefit from analysing the trends of the consulting world, understanding the mind-set of a consultant and developing key skills needed to excel at the role.

Consulting and Entrepreneurship Club of IIM Raipur is committed towards its aim to create entrepreneurial opportunities for students with innovative ideas. CEC Club can be reached at cec@iimrapur.ac.in. Those interested can also get in touch with the club on its Facebook page.

The Consulting Workshop by Backspace Consulting

On the 6 th and 7 th of August 2016, 1 st year students of IIM Raipur had their first tryst with the management consulting industry. The workshop was organised by Backspace Consulting, a renowned consulting firm based out of Kolkata and conducted by its Founder and CEO, Mr. Partha Pratim. 
Mr. Partha, an IIM Ahmedabad pass out, had the experience of working in several major consulting firms before starting his own venture, Backspace Consulting. Backspace, which started off as an education consulting firm has expanded into the communication and strategy consulting space. 
The session was spanned across two days where on the first day, students were introduced to various techniques and frameworks like Guesstimation, BCG matrix, Ansoff matrix, SWOT analysis and Porter 5 force model, among others. These frameworks are prerequisites for an aspiring consultant. Mr. Partha made sure that the students became well versed with these techniques by taking up basic real life case lets. 
On the second day, some more practical case lets were taken up before shifting focus to mock interviews. Students were given glimpse of how a consulting interview is conducted and how they would be tested on their creativity, analytical skills and ability to think on their feet. He gave tips on how to direct your thinking process in interview situations, by applying the techniques taught on the first day. He closed the session by giving insights into the life of a management consultant and the challenges that come along and answered any questions students had about consulting as a career option. 
On the whole, it was a great learning experience for the students and gave them a taste of rigours and requirements of the consulting world.

Mudit Vriddhi Benefaction Ceremony 2016

To learn, earn and return – these are the three phases of life – Jack Balousek

Mudit Vriddhi – the flagship event of Consulting and Entrepreneurship Club, sponsored by Sarda Group, was started to test the learning skills of the participants, their ability to earn using creative and out-of-the box business ideas and to return to the society a part of what we take from it.

This year the event was held during Equinox 6.0 on 30th January 2016. Each team was provided with artifacts worth Rs. 1000 which they were supposed to sell in the market areas of Raipur. The items allotted to each team were Bastar art artifacts that they were supposed to sell in the market. Among the artifacts, was also a painting that was made by the students of Kopalvani – a residential school for the hearing impaired. The event tested the participants negotiation skills, their creativity and innovativeness in coming up with short-term business ideas through which they could clear the inventory while deriving maximum premium from it. The participants needed to identify the right target market and use the appropriate marketing techniques as well as styles of persuasion to emerge as winners.

After a strenuous effort of 6 hours the teams collectively converted the amount of Rs 7000 into a whopping amount of Rs 1, 07, 629. Team Offbeat Ants from VGSOM, IIT Kharagpur emerged as winners while Team Almost Creative from MICA, Ahmedabad was the Runner’s up.

This year the event witnessed a momentous augmentation in the scope. And the benefaction ceremony was the culmination of this journey. With the motive of self-employment for the differently-abled, the ceremony was held to acknowledge the work done by the three associated NGOs.

Prof. B.S. Sahay, Director IIM Raipur gave the welcome address in which he appreciated the efforts of the NGOs and the participants in this noble cause and emphasized on making philanthropy a part of everyone’s life. Mr. P.K. Jain, CFO, Sarda Group was the guest of honour of the evening. He admired the commendable work done by the Consulting and Entrepreneurship Club with the help of the institute and encouraged us to carry it forward.

A Speech trainer was presented to Kopalvani – the school for the hearing impaired. The speech trainer would be useful for developing speech abilities among the students.

Six sewing machines were presented to Pratham Open Schools for the dropout girls. The school provides education till class 10th and stay to more than 300 girls. The sewing machines would help generate self-employment for the residents of the school.

A projector along with the screen was presented to Shanti Maitri Vikas Sansthan - A school for differently abled children working in collaboration with Pratham NGO. The projector would help facilitate the learning process of students.

The benefaction ceremony was followed by singing performances by Master Keshav and Master Vaish from Shanti Maitri Vikas Sansthan.

Prof. Sanjeev Prashar, Chairman, Consulting and Entrepreneurship Club, delivered the vote of thanks during the ceremony.

The entire event was conducted under the guidance of Prof. Sanjeev Prashar, Chairman CEC, and Prof. Atri Sengupta, Chairman, Student Affairs Committee.

Aakash 8.0 - the Entrepreneurs' Meet

Aakash 8.0

There are no dreams too large, no innovation unimaginable and no frontiers beyond our reach. – John S. Herrington

With this vision in mind, “Aakash 8.0”, the Raipur Entrepreneurs’ Meet, was organized by the Consulting and Entrepreneurship club on Wednesday, 9^th March 2016 to bring the dreamers and the innovators on a common platform with the industry to collaborate, collate and cogitate on their ideas and issues.

The event saw zealous participation from entrepreneurs across Raipur as well as entrepreneurs and aspiring entrepreneurs from different institutes like IIM Raipur, NIT Raipur and HNLU. The keynote speakers were Mr. Angad Rikhy, VC, Unitus Seed Fund, Mrs. Manjusha Pariyal, Management Consultant, ANM Consultant, Mr. Anshul Dave, Founder and CEO, Oceans Bridge LLP and Mrs. Ruhi Agarwal, Director, Shloka Birla School, Raipur and Bhilai, Prof. Sumeet Gupta, Associate Professor, IIM Raipur and Prof. Satyasiba Das, Assistant Professor, IIM Raipur.

The meet witnessed people discussing on plethora of issues related to startups that included inter alia opportunities for startups, sustainable business models, growth strategies, funding opportunities and challenges and building a healthy team. It provided a platform to the industry and academia to debate and deliberate on various issues and to collaborate to create synergies for mutual benefit.

Mr. Rikhy shared his insights on funding process and investment cycle and the need and sufficiency of external funding. Mrs. Pariyal shared her experiences on various facets like problems faced by a business right from incorporation to identification of market opportunities. Mr. Anshul Dave reminisced the challenges that he overcame to start up his own venture and urged the crowd to hold perseverance in their paths. Ms. Ruhi Agrawal shared her own life experiences as an entrepreneur and how lessons in life helped her in her journey. Prof. Satyasiba Das, Assistant Professor in the area of Strategic Management, IIM Raipur addressed the assembly on the upcoming incubation center and its benefit to the entrepreneurs of Raipur. Mr. Rajat Lakhotia, a student of IIM Raipur, gave a brief about the schemes and policies introduced as a part of Budget 2016. Entrepreneurs shared their business models, vision and challenges faced while aspiring entrepreneurs shared their unique business ideas.

The discussion ended with a unanimous consent of a higher learning curve for everyone present. With people from diverse fields, each gained newer insights with the aspiring young student entrepreneurs getting a step closer to give wings to their ideas. This was followed by an informal interaction where entrepreneurs shared experiences of their journey into the unknown, with each other and guiding the budding entrepreneurs towards achieving their dreams.

Aakash was started by the Consulting and Entrepreneurship club, IIM Raipur in 2013 with the vision to help start-ups, entrepreneurs and budding entrepreneurs to address the challenges in start-up businesses such as funding, resource allocation, hiring and planning as well as exploring business opportunities and building an entrepreneurial Eco-system in Raipur. 

MUDIT VRIDDHI 6.0 : Real-Time Marketplace Simulation

Ahoy biz folks! Here comes the real test of your skills. How well do you think you can wield your marketing swords and multiply money? And mind you, your hard earned money, earned through your fencing (marketing and selling) skills, would go for the benefit of the underprivileged children while you go home with a prize money worth Rs. 80,000*!!!!!! But only those, who survive the gruelling test of the mind and the body, can come out as the true winners!

Coz’ when the stakes are high, and the consequences - that really matter, the best comes out in people!

So, do you think you have it in you?

REGISTER for MUDIT VRIDDHI 6.0 here

This event is divided into three parts and all parts demand creativity from the participants to proceed from one round to the other.

 Round 1 (QUIZ): 
1. There will be an online quiz which will evaluate the knowledge, creativity and analytical skills of the participants.
2. 30 questions will be asked in the quiz.
3. Participants need to register at the link . 

Round 2 (Weightage of 65%):
1. The shortlisted teams will be invited to IIM Raipur and the event will happen throughout Raipur city.
2. This will be a whole day event.
3. The teams will be provided with certain goods acquired from a tribal region and they will be required to sell these goods in the market with an objective of maximization of profit.
4. Teams will gain the marks on the basis of profit they have earned.
5. This round will hold a weightage of 65% and rest 35% will lie with the next round.

Round 3 (Weightage of 35%):
1. Teams will be required to give a presentation on activities they have performed during this event.
2. Teams will gain the marks on the basis of creativity they have applied in selling the products.
3. Teams will also gain the marks on the basis of how they have applied class-room concepts in the real life scenario through this event.
4. Final winner will be the one who will collectively gain the highest marks in Round 2 and Round 3.

IMPORTANT DATES:

RULES & REGULATIONS

• The event is open to the students of all the B-Schools
• This is a team participation event
• Each team comprises of exactly 4 members
• Multiple teams from a single college can register
• Certificates will be awarded to all the finalists
• All decisions in matters of eligibility, authenticity and final judgment lies with the Consulting and Entrepreneurship Club, IIM Raipur

P.S: Travel Expenses of Rs 1500 per participant (not for winners) and accommodation would be provided for On-Campus round.

*Terms and conditions applied

Register for the competition here 

or 

Through Dare2Compete

Please like our FB page for further updates

Point of Contact:
Shreya Agarwal
Mobile: 7225018048
Email: cec@iimraipur.ac.in