NEN E-Leader workshop
11th - 12th October 2017
Two students Aman Malhotra (18018) and Harshita Singh(19063) of CSE Department from Dronacharya College of Engineering, Gurugram attended the event “NEN E-Leader Workshop” at Bhagwan Parshunath Institute of Technology on 11th- 12th October 2017. The convener of the event was the Ms. Shruti (Regional Manager of the Wadhwani Foundations, New Delhi) along with the renowned speaker Ms. Visnu Priya.
The main objective of the workshop was to enable new and future entrepreneurs to access events and resources, share ideas and content, organize and market activities, and forge relationships across India and the world.
NEN is a community dedicated to fostering entrepreneurship. Services focus on providing Institutional Capacity Building, Entrepreneur support, Entrepreneurial eco-system & National platforms. Based on an idea by Romesh Wadhwani. There were over 20 students from different engineering colleges, B-schools and management institutes.
Day 1 (11th October, 2017):
Students were welcomed and were asked to coalesce with one another before the commencement of the event which was inaugurated and steered by Ms. Vishnu Priya.
She primarily focused on educating the students the importance of development of entrepreneurial skills, and the usage of the aforementioned in practical environment. In the orientation program she explained the various aspects of the Wadhwani Foundation, in helping students to establish their own startups and motivating the students to ‘discover’ their interests and to enhance projects for students with start-ups so they can gain a first-hand knowledge of the challenges faced by an entrepreneur, shadowing an entrepreneur, initiating an entrepreneur in residence by educational institutions, and start-up job fairs in both, under graduate, post graduate institutions would be helpful, including a large experiential learning content in the facilitation of the subject would be useful, instead of having an examination. Creation of campus companies would improve learning. Often the youth do not want to engage in this, as it is stressful, ambiguous, has no structure and in the initial years’ one has no free time. Through the exposure, they can make up their minds accordingly – understanding all ideas are not opportunities, needs recognition.
The whole curriculum of the foundation is erected onto the 2 pillars which are: Practicum and Classroom Modules.
Ms. Visnu discussed the courses available on the foundation’s platform ‘Learnwise’ in detail. She explained Entrepreneurship courses which the enable students with basics of starting up to everything involved in running a company. Skill training courses equip job-seekers with requisite employability and soft skills to find jobs and excel in various roles across verticals. All activity on the platform is recorded and summarized as reports and dashboards so the faculty, students as well as the management of the partner institutes can track progress and measure the impact of the training programs.
The desideratum of the event encouraged the students to be entrepreneurs and burgeoning their respective e-cells yet conjointly inculcate in the students the leadership endowments and capacity building.
In the end of the day she urged the students to come forward participate in the E-cell activities.
Day 2 (12th October, 2017):
The second day was interesting as all the students were divided into groups and ask to conduct activities like D.I.S.R.U.P.T, One Dollar Venture, Entrepreneurship Jeopardy, Think with the box and Investor Hunt.
D.I.S.R.U.P.T is a fun filled game in which the facilitator flashes a random object card to the class where the students then had to fill the following:
D.DERIVE: Pick an interesting feature of the product flashed and use it for something else.
I. INCLUDE: Make something better from the product by adding, subtracting and modifying
S.SEPARATE: Disassemble the parts and create something new from the existing product.
R.REPURPOSE: Rethink the function of the product created by you.
U.UNITE: Create a hybrid from 2 products flashed on the screen.
P.PERSONALISE: Customise the new product.
T.TRANSPLANT: Move it to another place or country.
The student groups created awesome products with a thermometer and a spoon.
The second activity took place was One Dollar Venture. In this game each team was provided with 1 dollar each and they had to create entrepreneurial opportunities from the given amount. Buying the raw materials to the whole processing of the product and advertisement costs if any were all taken care under a single dollar by all the groups.
The next was Entrepreneurship Jeopardy which featured a quiz competition in which contestants were presented with entrepreneurial general knowledge clues in the form of answers, and must phrase their responses in the form of questions.
Think with the box hands on designing experience which provided the students with an opportunity to begin thinking about the product- its features, USP, pricing and how to communicate with customers.
The show stopper of the day was the Investor Hunt where each team had to pitch their startup idea to a group of investors keeping in mind the entrepreneurial finance with the ultimate aim of raising money.
The event ended on a smooth note where all the teams were filled with zeal and enthusiasm to change the world.
The workshop proved to be beneficial for all students who are aspiring to be the part of the National Entrepreneurship Network Program and imminent Entrepreneurs.