CEL | BITS Pilani, Dubai Campus
Includes:
•Mantra Awards 2013,
•New Venture Course (NVC),
and much more...
Design by
Siddhant Gupta
TABLE OF CONTENTS
Page
04
05
06
08
09
10
14
15
16
18
19
20
22
Journey of CEL......................................................Message
Center for Entrepreneurial Leadership..................Message
TEDxBitsPilaniDubai...............................................Event
How to prepare a Business Plan...................................Talk
Turn8 Seed Accelerator................................................Talk
15 Signs of a Successful Entrepreneur.....................Article
Start-Up Culture.....................................................Article
Business Networking....................................................Talk
The Wolf of Wall Street..............................................Event
Failure: A fortune for success...................................Article
Business Planning & Strategies...................................Talk
BITSAA Mantra Awards 2013................................Article
New Venture Course (NVC)...................................Article
For all and even more... www.CELBPDC.org
Conjure Issue 3 | April 2014
Hi Friends,
It has been an exciting journey since the inception of the Center
for Entrepreneurial Leadership (CEL), in 2012. The core idea of establishing the CEL at BITS Pilani, Dubai Campus, was to nurture the entrepreneurial spirit in each one of us and to help unlock the latent leadership skills that every BITSian has.
Leadership could take many forms: at CEL you are never told ‘how
to do something or what to do’, rather you are given room to implement
your own original ideas and thus bestowed the responsibility to implement what you started out. The examples for such CEL inspired projects are many, starting from TEDx, Wolf of Wall street, Conjure, etc. The
CEL has in this process created an ecosystem of high-spirited individuals who share common values that enables us to achieve the impossible.
If you believe that CEL could in some way add a positive dimension to you, we would be excited to reach out to you and work with
you, to help your ideas transform to scalable ventures. With a luminary
Board of advisers who mentor and support the activities of the Center,
and with close-knit association with some of world’s most prominent
Entrepreneurial forums like TiE Dubai, Kauffman Foundation (USA),
i360, Intelligent SME, the CEL is just the kind of place for you to begin
your entrepreneurial journey.
It is said that great entrepreneurs have a genuine passion and
belief that what they are trying to do is change the world. The idea to
establish CEL would not have been possible without the support from
Prof. Ravi Kant Mittal and guidance from Dr. Srinivasa Rao and above
all my fantastic team(s) whom I had the privilege to work with: Anish Aggarwal, Amritansh Varshney, Nabanita De, Disha Sharma, Aishwarya Jain, Pooja Shah, Ayush Chordia, Siddhant Gupta, Arshi Farid, Anirban Musib, Nitin Bhalla, Zulfikar, Manasa Suresh, Arjun Arya,
Tushar Vatsa, Sourav Banerjee and many others, all of whom have been
truly inspirational for the success of CEL.
Best,
Deepan Kishore Kumar
Founding President (2012-14)
04
CEL | BITS Pilani, Dubai Campus
Center for Entrepreneurial
Leadership
The idea of CEL was conceived by the BITSAA Center for Entrepreneurship and Venture Capital (CEVC), with the vision of promoting the spirit of entrepreneurial thinking among the BITSian community.
The CEL at Dubai Campus was launched by The Chancellor of BITS, Pilani
with same vision and spirit.
At the CEL, we believe that entrepreneurship has a key role to play in
addressing the socio-economic challenges by creating sustainable and scalable
businesses, new jobs, innovative products and services, and increased wealth
for the larger community.
The organisation aims to enable enterprise creation and enterprise growth
across U.A.E. region by fostering the necessary context and framework conditions that not only create opportunities for, but also builds the capacity for
entrepreneurship. The strategic focus of our work includes enhanced access to
innovation, self-sustaining knowledge networks and new models of value creation.
It is in this collaborative effort and journey of the CEL to help reshape
the socio-economic landscape through entrepreneurship that I welcome your
active participation.
Dr. Srinavas Rao
Faculty In-Charge, CEL
05
Conjure Issue 3 | April 2014
DARE TO DREAM
The 3rd edition of TEDx, a global phenomena, was held in BITS Pilani, Dubai Campus on
November 10, 2013. The event unfolded with a Welcome Speech from Vaibhav Mahajan and
Sheikh Nayab Karim in which they posed an interesting question to the audience - “What TEDx
is to you?”. They went on to mention that in today’s world of cutthroat competition, the greed
to want more, pushes people to want more, which is precisely what distinguished the speakers
from the rest - They dared to dream.
The first speaker of the event was Ms. Sandhya Prakash, an Entrepreneurial Business Development Strategist. Post marriage, Ms. Sandhya was bombarded with opportunities of starting an
Industrial Product Business, a software business or organising social events. But she wanted to
“dig her own desert rose”. She was not only a lady, but an expat in Saudi Arabia and hence had
to face a lot of difficulties in achieving her goals. Engaging the audience in an anecdote, she said
she had an inherent fear of heights, but she decided to go skydiving - and then, she realised fear
and faith make you believe in something you cant see.
A TEDx video of Mr. Marco Tempest, the Techno Illusionist at TEDxTokyo 2009 was shown
enthralling the audience and leaving them mesmerised! A casual question and answer round
followed, to riddle the audiences’ brains on how much they really knew about TEDx and they
were asked the TED tagline and which edition of TEDxBPDC was being held to win exciting
e-Max gift vouchers.
The next speaker of the event was Mr.Iyad Mourtada, a Professional Trainer. He began by posing the question, “Do you like your reality?”, pushing the audience to introspect whilst sharing
the famous lion and sheep fable wherein the lion was made to realise his true majestic nature.
He quoted Robertson Davies saying that “The eye sees only what the mind is prepared to comprehend”. Clad in a magicians attire - wand et al, he went on to quote Roald Dahl - “Those who
don’t believe in magic will never find it.”
Last but not the least the Day ended on a humorous note with Mr. Michael J Tolans’ “Lie, Steal
and Cheat Your Way to Success” mantra. He has 15 years leadership experience in the Middle
East in training, raising finance, generation of Sales process Management and is a Business
Consultant and Trainer in the MENA Region. Every second of his talk, as to how exactly to lie,
steal and cheat one’s way to success, made the audience fall off their chairs.
All in all, an inspiring day with the ringing message - “Dare to Dream”.
- Arshi Farid
06
CEL | BITS Pilani, Dubai Campus
07
Conjure Issue 3 | April 2014
How to prepare a Business Plan.
A Talk and Interactive session on “How to Prepare a Business Plan” was held in BITS Pilani, Dubai
Campus on October 10, 2013 by Mr. Binod Shankar, an
entrepreneur and co-founder of Genesis Institute. In attendance were not only BITsians from all years, but also
the students of S.P Jain University and IMT. The event began with a welcome address by Ms. Miel Severinova, where
she spoke about TiE Dubai, a non-profit organisation for
mentoring budding entrepreneurs. This was followed by
an Introduction to the guest speaker by Prof. Dr. Rao.
Mr. Binod Shankar, prior to opening Genesis Institute, a financial training center in Dubai specialising in financial trainings including Professional qualifications like
CFA and CFAB, corporate training solutions and public
training courses in finance, had managed private equity
funds, run financial controls for a rapidly growing real-estate company, worked in audit and due diligence and advised banks on loans to SMEs.
Mr. Shankar said that entrepreneurship hit him in
his forties and he wished he'd started earlier, he shared
his failures and successes, asked the audience why they
wished to be entrepreneurs and spoke about CFA. He discussed each component of a business plan in great detail
with great enthusiasm and gave a lot of rules of thumbs and
repeated the importance of certain key factors, such as
"Cash is not Profit and Profit is not Cash!". He compared
each part of the business plan with his own personal experience with Genesis. He ended the talk with an inspirational quote by Steve Jobs that "The only way to do great work
is to love what you do". This was followed by a Question
and Answer session where students picked his brains with
questions such as "If a product is innovative and there is
no competition, how would one market it?" to which he
replied that "E-marketing is the best option".
The talk concluded with Ms. Miel giving a few final
guidelines for the Business Plan Competition. The Vote
of Thanks was delivered by Anomitra Banerjee and a memento was handed to Mr. Shankar by Ashima Raghu. Mr.
Shankar is a very intelligent speaker and said he would love
to talk at BITS again!
08
-Arshi Farid
CEL | BITS Pilani, Dubai Campus
Seed Accelerator
A Talk and Interactive session on the “Turn 8 Seed Accelerator” was held in BITS Pilani, Dubai Campus on 15 December by Mr. Sameer Sortur, Director of Revenue Growth &
Operations @The Cribb. In attendance were not only Center for Entrepreneurial Leadership
members, but also members of team Gear Shifters. The event began with a welcome address by
Anomitra Bannerjee, where he introduced the guest speaker.
Mr. Sameer Sortur, prior to Innovation 360, has had 13+years of senior management
consulting experience in Innovation, Technology, Strategy & Excellence.
Mr. Sortur said that there is a great need today to think creatively. In addition to this, he
gave the example of software giant and game changer Microsoft, where the under-performing
employee is made head of training as they work the best under severe time constraints. He
urged young minds to bring up new ideas, be creative and innovative. He laid great emphasis on
idea generation and culture management. Following this, he gave the time structure of creating
a market in 120 days, where 30 days were devoted to design, 60 to prototyping and 30 for the
commercialisation and launch of the business model. He also said that a Seed Accelerator, the
idea stage to a successful business, started 100-150 years ago.After this, he went on to explain
what TURN 8 is about.Axiom telecom, a major telecom service provider company, sends its
employees to The Cribb. There are participants of many diverse nationalities for this program
from all over the world like Egyptians, Britishers, Belarusians, Indonesians and Malaysians
amongst others. After the final stage of the program, they are registered as offshore companies.
The talk concluded with a question answer session, which was of high quality as many
interesting questions were posed to Mr. Sortur. The vote of thanks was delivered by Anomitra
Bannerjee and a memento was handed to Mr. Sortur by Anshul Singhal, Dr. Srinivas Rao and
Dr. Lajwanti Aidasani. Mr. Sortur ended the talk saying the UAE smartphone market is fast
pacing and we need to create applications to solve problems.
-Arshi Farid
09
Conjure Issue 3 | April 2014
15 Signs that you have
What it takes to be a
Real
Successful
Entrepreneur.
Unemployment rates are diminishing and more jobs are available than there
were in the past couple years, but it’s still one of the best times to become your own
boss. If you’re thinking about opening your own business, go through this list and
see if you have what it takes to become a successful entrepreneur.
1. You have a never-ending passion.
If you’re thinking about opening your own business, you obviously already have great
passion. Whether you want to become a business consultant or open a bakery, you love
what you do enough to want to do it for a living. Your passion means that you can not
only work full time, but you can live and breathe whatever you choose to do without
burning out.
2. You’re a calculated risk-taker.
Opening your own business is a huge risk in itself, but it’s just the first. You need to be
ready to keep taking more risks in order to keep your business afloat. This means you
have to be open to uncertainty, but also that you know what risks are worth it. You can’t
put all your money into one venture and hope it succeeds and can fuel the rest of your
business, because if it fails, you’re out. You can, however, put a great deal of money into
something innovative to see if it works, because then you might be on the cutting edge
of something new. If it fails, you’ll have lost some money and learned from the risk so
you can appropriately further your business in the future.
10
CEL | BITS Pilani, Dubai Campus
3. You’re not afraid to work really hard.
If you think owning your own business is fun, you’re wrong. It helps that you have the
love and passion to make it fun, but it’s going to take a long time to get there. First
you’re going to have to work really hard. You’re starting with nothing, building a business and a name for yourself. You not only have to think about your business name,
identity, logo, storefront, products and website, but you also have to think about what
you’ll charge to make a profit and the taxes you’ll have to pay. If you have what it takes
to be a successful entrepreneur, none of that scares you because you’re willing to work
really hard for what you want to achieve.
4. You serve as a fountain of ideas.
Do you have one good idea for a business that keeps coming to mind? That’s not a bad
start, but to be successful, it’s best if you have a nonstop flow of ideas. You need to be
able to think up the basis for your business, a way to refresh your image after awhile,
how to get your name out there and how to make sure what you’re doing is necessary for
the community. The ideas should just keep coming to you, whether it happens naturally,
while you’re sleeping or during a scheduled brainstorming session.
5. You’re willing and able to learn from everyone.
Entrepreneurs don’t ignore people who might not be in their field or have their best interests in mind. You have to be willing to listen to anyone, because you never know who
might have good advice or inspire a great idea. You can’t write someone off because
they don’t own a business or don’t seem successful, because you can learn lessons in
the most random places.
6. You don’t like to give up.
You’ve made it this far, so you seem like you’re eager to stick with things. If you’re going to be a great business owner, you don’t like to give up, and it’s really hard to make
you give up. You don’t get discouraged if there’s a lot to be done, or someone says
something negative, or something doesn’t go the right way. In fact, obstacles like those
make you work even harder!
7. You can see the big picture.
When you’re excited to open your own business, it’s easy to stop looking at the big picture because you’re ready to get started, and you naively think you’re going to succeed
immediately. Successful entrepreneurs don’t get caught up in the excitement, and instead can see the big picture. They know there will be hard times but don’t get discouraged because they know ups and downs are part of the big picture.
11
Conjure Issue 3 | April 2014
8. You keep up with the times.
Business owners have to be on the cutting edge of technology, the community they’re
in, marketing and more. For example, anyone selling their wares remotely, like from a
food truck or at a crafts fair, will have the ability to run a credit card through their smartphone. If you’re not up on this type of technology, you could lose a lot of business by
only accepting cash if you’re working remotely. Successful entrepreneurs know what’s
going on that will help them push their business even the tiniest bit farther.
9. You’re not afraid to ask for help.
Just like listening to advice from a variety of people, successful business owners aren’t afraid to ask for help. Just because you’re branching out on your own and being in
charge doesn’t mean you have to do it all alone. Ask for help from your family or your
employees if you need it, whether it’s physical help or just emotional support. Ask fellow business owners for advice if you need a push to stay positive. The more connected
you are with those around you, the more help you’ll find.
10. You’re able to complete things.
Business owners have to step up and complete everything that’s on their plates. You
can’t only do the easy tasks, or the ones that can be done quickly. If certain projects
seem too daunting, divide them into smaller tasks that seem more manageable. Tackle
your To Do list and make sure you complete all that needs to be done, or else your business will suffer.
11. You don’t procrastinate.
When you’re your own boss, you can’t put things off. There’s no one higher up than
you to take care of the important things, and no one below you to shove the boring tasks
off on. You have to do it all yourself, and you have to be able to do it in a timely manner.
The longer you put things off, the harder it is to do them; when you own your own business, this might make the difference between landing a major client and losing a job bid
completely.
12. You’re excited about what you do.
Excitement is crucial when you’re your own boss, because you don’t have anyone else to
motivate you. You need to keep yourself positive by constantly having a drive and desire
to get up and work every day. As soon as your excitement starts to falter, your business
will suffer because you’re not putting in enough love and effort to keep it afloat.
12
CEL | BITS Pilani, Dubai Campus
13. You use your imagination.
Business owners are innovative; they stay on top of their game and use their imaginations
to brainstorm anything from business names and logos to marketing ideas and ways to
reach out into the community and stay fresh. You can’t depend on hiring outside help to
implement all of this – it’s your business, so you need to be the brains behind it! Your
imagination runs nonstop and you never toss out an idea because it seems ridiculous;
good entrepreneurs will give anything a try, because you never know what will work!
14. You’re a social person.
Being your own boss or working by yourself can seem like a lonely endeavor, but in
reality you need to be a social person. Business owners have to network way more than
people who are employees within a larger company. Entrepreneurs have to reach out
into the community and see what is needed and what they can do to make their business
important. They can’t just stay faceless behind a computer, they need to socialize with
their customers and clients and have good people skills.
15. You like to give back.
Entrepreneurs can’t be selfish and successful — you have to give back! So many small
businesses donate a portion of their profits to charity these days that it really sticks out
when they don’t. Giving back doesn’t have to be limited to financial giving, though.
Entrepreneurs who volunteer or give motivational speeches at schools are also giving
people, and don’t mind donating their time and knowledge to such appointments.
Do you fit these characteristics?
If so, get out there and make it work!
- Moin Siddiqui
13
Conjure Issue 3 | April 2014
StartUp Culture
A new Heartbroken love Story
What creates startup culture? Most people associate it with “passion” but never explain
what drives people to be passionate in the first place. It has become one of those terms
that everyone tosses around and pretends to understand while nobody comes clean because they don’t want to be the first to admit they don’t know what they’re talking about.
Startup culture is born from having a relationship with your work. It is this personal connection to work that we find so attractive about the culture of startups .Like we admire
and envy people who have found true love, we also aspire to having a similar emotional
relationship with our work.
But emotional relationships are fragile. There are two primary ways the emotional spark
of start-up culture is fragile like glass.
Why painful? A disastrous demo day! Losing the funding you need!or finding out your
co-founder has betrayed you. A moment of defeat palls on all that you had given on. It
now questions everything you’ve done. They usually happen quickly and definitively,
within months instead of years, and they help you fail fast. While painful, they can provide a moment of clarity and revelation.
Far more damaging is the dullness , the slow disillusion that vanishes away your excitement in imperceptible bits, the dullness never gives you a clear sign to stop and move
on. It is like a zombie startup that grows just enough to keep quitting but not enough to
be successful.It give you a no clear directive of what went wrong. Startup culture is literallys like a Love-Life Relationship. As much as anything else in an entrepreneur’s life
his startup is his partner, his passion, and his primary relationship. But as with all relationships, that passion is emotionally vulnerable. It’s the risk you take for caring deeply
about the work you do. And it’s why startup culture is such a fragile and precious thing.
- Anirban Musib
14
CEL | BITS Pilani, Dubai Campus
BUSINESS NETWORKING
An interactive session on “Business Networking” was held in BITS Pilani, Dubai Campus
on 13th February by Mr. Vishal Pandey, Director and Principal Consultant of Glasgow Consulting
Group. In attendance were a very enthusiastic bunch of first years, along with members of the Center
of Entreprenuerial Leadership. The event began with a Welcome address from Anirban Musib, PR
and Marketing Head, where he introduced the guest speaker.
Glasgow Consulting Group is an independent research and advisory firm providing market intelligence and strategic advice on a diverse set of industries across the Middle East and Africa. GCG
uses a fact-based research approach which is proven across a wide range of sectors to deliver precise and comprehensive information that is used by clients to fuel decision making and drive business
strategy.
Mr.Vishal took everyones introductions.
He went on to define Business Networking and
said it’s factors are mainly Sales, Marketing, Public Relations and Word of Mouth. He added that
better networks create health ,wealth and happiness because “we” is always stronger than “he”.
They help others and ourselves as they are contribute to a whopping 70% of promotions/jobs. They
also define our lives by what we do and enable us
to live longer. He urged us to have active/diverse
networks as they are a source of well being. He laid
a great emphasis on the facts that Mentoring and
Networking are not a game or merely passing out
business cards.Following this, he gave out certain
simple rules for successful networking for students, which included dressing appropriately and
always being equipped with business cards and a
pen when meeting someone. He also said that if
there is a connection, one should ask for his/her
business card and hand out your business cards
when asked. After this, he mentioned that one
must never eat alone. One can work for his network by following up, creating and maintaining a
database, executing hello emais/calls and being
sincere to other people and giving them his undivided attention.
The talk concluded with a question answer
session, which was of high quality as many intelligent questions were posed to Mr. Vishal Pandey. The vote of thanks was delivered by Deepan
Kumar and a memento was handed to Mr.Pandey
by Nitin Bhalla, Dr. Srinivas Rao and Arshi Farid.
Mr.Pandey ended the talk by commanding to take
action steps now!
-Arshi Farid
15
Conjure Issue 3 | April 2014
Center for Entrepreneurial Leadership
BITS Pilani, Dubai Campus
presents
The Wolf of Wall Street
@ ENGINuity ‘14
:: http://celbpdc.org/events/WoWs ::
16
CEL | BITS Pilani, Dubai Campus
An amazing, interesting and unique event was created by the team of Center for
Entrepreneurial Leadership, BITS Pilani, Dubai campus. The event held under the
Inter-University fiesta, named “ENGINuity ’14”. An event which tested financial and entrepreneurial skills of the participants at each and every step. And hence, the event shared its
name with an Oscar nominated movie, “The Wolf of Wall Street” (abb. WoWS).
This event was first of its kind in the Dubai Campus of BITS Pilani. The students were
to participate in teams or two or three to compete in a two-round scenario of Stock Market.
Round 1 initiated Online, a week prior to ENGINuity ’14 on March 24, 2014 with a
total of 70 teams from 5 universities situated in Dubai. Participating teams were allotted
with with a user account and a sum virtual cash of $100,000 on our partner stock-exchange contest website. Teams were allowed to buy, sell, short and cover stocks from
American exchanges like NASDAQ, NYSE and AMEX. The Round-1 ran its course, with its
breath-taking ups and downs for a week. On March 31, 2014, at 11:59 PM, the Round-1
ended by giving us the Top 15 teams who made the most profit from their clever and strategical game plan.
Those 15 qualifying teams were invited to compete in Round 2 at BITS Pilani, Dubai
Campus on April 2, 2014. This round dealt with actual recreation of what trading in Wall
Street feels like. The teams played as the investors, the team of CEL worked as Brokers and
Presenters of projects. 7 projects were created/selected with a market research of their
ongoing and Investors could invest or withdraw their virtual cash in any project. There was
excitement, noise, laughter, sorrow, fights, craziness, intense research, secrets, unexpected
turns and, the best of all, the gamble of money.
The competition event ended resulting in 3 teams (F3AR, Trader7 and Lameman)
earning the most profits, for which they were awarded with medals and certificates. The
whole was a success and the reviews and feedback were heart warming.
In true meaning, it was what a BITSian calls, “Innovate. Achieve. Lead.”.
The organising team included members of CEL: Siddhant Gupta, Nitin Bhalla, Tushar Vatsa,
Sourav Banerjee, Amritansh Varshney, Mohammed Zulfikar, Arshi Farid and Anirban Musib.
“The Wolf of Wall Street” will return next semester…
17
Conjure Issue 3 | April 2014
Failure: A fortune for Success
Entrepreneurship is a growing culture attracting many people in the
world today. There are 100s of startups budding around us each day, but
only a few startups take firm roots in
establishing a successful venture. As a
culture, we’re obsessed with being first
and why not?
Many of the most successful companies in the world were once an individual’s dream of a small idea. Multifold
leading business people have changed
the world with small ideas offering
great solutions. Elevated thinking and
innovative solutions are at the forefront
of any successful company. It takes a
lot of perseverance and dedication to
change ideas into a viable product in
the market.
The first step of entrepreneurship is
knowing to accept failures and learning from it. It takes nothing to stop trying when your ideas are pulled down,
but it takes substantial tenacity to stand
up again to win someday. The triumph
of entrepreneurs does not lie in establishing a company. The game begins
only then. The ultimate triumph lies
not in achieving it, but in retaining it
forever. Those who have failed are not
unfortunate. Every failure is a fortune
for a notable success and every success
is a gift of fortune.
If you have an idea and dint receive the recognition it needed, it is the first sign of going places.
When it gets rejected, each time it has a larger scope for improvement, a bigger room for innovation and a better place for recognition. All you need to do is reconstruct your idea, focus on
innovation, understand the need of it, show it to people and start giving them. Start a business to
make a difference not just to make money. Show the world your dreams not your desire. The biggest risk of business is playing safe with ideas cowering in the darkness of a squandered potential.
When you have dreamt big, don’t stop to try harder and fight the enemy within to achieve big..
“When FEAR knocks the door, Let FAITH open the door”
18
- Koushika N.
CEL | BITS Pilani, Dubai Campus
Business Planning
and Strategies
with Mr. T. P. Anand
CEL, BITS Pilani, Dubai was blessed to have
witnessed a talk by Mr. T.P. Anand, a Chartered
Accountant with 26 years experience in helping
organisations in various capacities. The talk was
on Business Planning and Strategies and it was
so enthralling that despite exceeding the time
limit, the audience pleaded that Mr. T.P. Anand
continue giving his insights on how to be a
successful in the business world. The talk had
touched on all topics right from what should
be the objective of a business and what makes a
successful Businessman.
If you missed to see this man in action, I pity you.
Here are a few points that he touched upon :
•The sole objective of a business isn’t only profit and
it doesn’t remain constant. The motive changes from
year to year according to the market and your strategy.
A few of them are stability, growth, efficiency and
survival.
•You need to recognize the environment of your
business in order to survive and must take into account
both internal and external factors.
• The business world follows Darwin’s principles –
Survival of the Fittest. Its not necessary that you have
to be the largest or most strongest organisation, you
have to be the most adaptable to the market needs.
and there is alot more*...
- Tushaar Vatsa
*To read the complete article and download
the presentation, open the link
http://www.celbpdc.org/events/TPAnand
19
http://www.bitsaa.org/mantra-awards
Apoorv Baweja
Mantra Award for Entrepreneur of the Year
Born in London, primary schooling in Hong Kong, high school in India and college at
BITS Pilani, Dubai, Apoorv is pursued Electronics and Communication Engineering.He
always had a determination to do higher studies with merits & his own earnings .He took
interest in Next Generation business of E-commerce. He has 3 startups to his name. He
started a manufacturing company in India in 2010 named “Bhayaji Mercantile Pvt. Ltd.”
which offers drop shipping services to resellers. It gives them an opportunity to sell the
goods at various marketplaces online. The other company was registered in USA in 2012
under the banner “Online Smart Deals LLC” which deals in online retailing.”Lavish Livings
International FZE” is his latest startup in UAE.
Deepan Kishore Kumar
Mantra Award for Innovation
Deepan Kishore kumar is a Senior student of Electronics and communications engineering at BITS Pilani, Dubai Campus. His research interests are in autonomous aerial robots
and smart micro-systems. He is a part of the IFOR (Intelligent Flying Object for Reconnaissance) team that is continuing to push the state of art in aerial robotics in the UAE.
He is also actively involved in BioMEMS research and nanotechnology.
Niyati Parmeswaran
Mantra Award for Innovation
A Computer Science from BITS Pilani, Dubai Campus. A dream of being able to provide
a machine with intelligence that will answer Alan Turing’s question of ‘Can Machines
think?’ motivates her research. She has been awarded the BITSAA Travel Scholarship for
her work on a GPS Based Tracking System , the Padam Shri Kanji Maishri Scholarship for
her research contribution towards Epileptic seizure prediction & prevention and the 3rd
position in the Information System Category at the UAE National UG Research Competition for the deployment of a seamless Virtual Health Care System. Niyati has headed
the Public Speaking/Literary Club as well as the Mathematics Association at BITS.
20
Mantra Awards 2013 Winners
Dubai Campus
Rajarshi Sinha
Mantra Award for Outstanding Leadership (Male)
Rajarshi Sinha, currently in the third year of his undergraduate studies, is pursuing his
majors in Electrical & Electronics Engineering from BITS Pilani, Dubai Campus. An avid
reader & passionate fiction writer since his early teens, Rajarshi has always been keenly
inclined towards the literary side. His knack, ergo, gained him a position in the Editorial Board on-campus in his first year itself. Rajarshi is currently holding the position of
General Manager for Public Relations & Communications at AIESEC Dubai, where-in
he leads a group of 8-12 individuals from 6 different nationalities. AIESEC is the world’s
largest student run organisation, second in following to the United Nations.
Rinnie Aggarwal
Mantra Award for Social Leadership
Rinnie, graduatedwith Electronics and Communication Degree, has always believed
that putting oneself for the betterment of the society is the biggest achievement one can
aim for. This attitude has led her to being the President of the Social and Environmental
Club of BITS. She has been an active volunteer in the blind school in her hometown
since school days and has organized Spoken English classes in college for workers,
security guards and hostel attendants to prepare them to converse in English in daily
life. She is currently part of the ‘Emirates Energy Award’ team, which aims to boost the
rationalized use of energy and resources.
Vishishtha Bothra
Mantra Award for Outstanding Leadership (Female)
Vishishtha is the leader who always comes through. Her teammates love and respect her
which makes every task an easy one. With an excellent imagination, great people skills
and a never-say-never attitude we cant think of a more deserving candidate for this BITS
award.
21
Conjure Issue 3 | April 2014
CEL’s landmark program
New Venture Course
(NVC)
Dubai is the land of opportunity
– under the shelter of expo 2020, this
commercial emirate on the southeast
coast of the Persian Gulf is open for
business. With many startups such as
Jamalon, Desado.com, ShopGo etc
setting up base over here its nothing but
indicative of Dubai’s booming startup
friendliness. The learning experience that
you can gain over here is unparalleled to
any other city as it also helps nurturing
your startup to Seizing this occasion,
Center of Entrepreneurial Leadership
is Opening up a course called “ New
Venture Course “ (abb. NVC).
Now what is NVC? We at Center
of Entrepreneurial Leadership have
noticed that our campus houses many
brilliant yet unpolished entrepreneurial
minds. In order to help these budding
entrepreneurs with a starting point and
guidance we are setting up the New
Venture Course in our campus. NVC
has been setup in Pilani & Goa and the
Pilani NVC Chapter itself has graduated
24 teams out of which 4 have moved
onto pre seed funding stage, namely
22
Samrtec (Innovative Database Systems),
TunePatrol (Social Music Discovery),
Aadharshila
(Interactive
Online
Education) & Photowalkr (Photography
Education). NVC is basically a 3 credit
practical course in Entrepreneurship in
which we give you the resources to setup
a Startup up till Pre-seed funding.
All thats swell but how do we go about
executing such an innovative idea as
a coursework ? Here’s how :
• The students are required to come
up with a startup idea and required to
write a detailed business plan.
• We at NVC will be assigning you
suitable mentors with whom you are
required to collaborate and work.
They will help you in refining your
idea.
• We will be inviting guest lectures
from Entrepreneurs and Investors
that will give you a hands-on learning
experience.
CEL | BITS Pilani, Dubai Campus
• We will be collaborating with various
accelerators and incubators in
the Middle East such as In5, Seed
startup, i360accelerator to help you
till PreSeed funding.
• If you aren’t ripe in the field of
entrepreneurship but have the
entrepreneurial temper, you are
welcome on board as we plan to
guide you with providing you with
resource material such as e-books,
courses, ed-X courses and other
online resources to help you gain the
required prerequisites.
Here’s the breakdown of the academic
part of the course :
• Approximately 25 to 30 lectures
on various topics to help you get
kickstarted held over Web Conference.
• There will be an Elevator Pitch Contest.
• Three Pitch-Deck presentations
• Six 60-90 minute skype calls across
the semester with respective mentors
besides interactions through other
forms of communications.
• A team size of 3 to 5.
Grading System:
• 05% attendance
• 10% class participation specially
during workshop sessions
• 10% peer feedback
• 10% mentor-mentee relationship
• 05% elevator pitch contest ( these will
be evaluated at campus level)
• 20% first presentation on market
sizing & MVP ( within each campus
by faculty members & at least one
alumni)
• 20% second presentation on product
& market research (across campuses
by 3 faculty members & at least one
alumni)
• 20% final business plan presentation
(across campuses by 3 faculty
members & at least one alumni)
Application Process :
• Entrepreneurship goals: Max. 100
words
• Entrepreneurship efforts till date :
Max. 100 words
• Describe 1 team idea: Max. 200 words
• 1 individual idea : Max. 200 words
• Team members : names and skills of
each team member Max. 100 words.
So do apply for NVC if you think you
can be the next big startup.
Summarized by Tushar Vatsa
23
Conjure Issue 3 | April 2014
Conjure
Issue 1
Arshi Farid
Chief Editor
Siddhant Gupta
Designer
Issue 2
Tushar Vatsa
Reporter
Moin Siddiqui
Columnist
Anirban Musib
Columnist
:: http://celbpdc.org/Conjure ::
24
Koushika N.
Columnist