UNIFYING THE GLORY

Report
2018
Today, economies across world are witnessing a massive
change mainly driven by the students in the form of
entrepreneurial thinking. This change may perhaps be the
most crucial step in molding the future of our nation.
Understanding the importance of this change, various
IITs, NITs, IIITs and other colleges across India have
started fostering innovative entrepreneurial thinking;
which is accurately the agenda of various EDCs and E-
Cells setup in those colleges.

Individually all such entrepreneurial bodies are doing a

decent job, but globally, these individual efforts don’t
make a lasting impact. Thus the motive of E-Connect can
be summarized as “CONNECT. ASCEND. CONQUER.”.
Connecting to enhance the extensive network and
enormous pool of resources commanded by each
institute; and leverage the differences, originating from
the abrasion of working individuals in various fields, to
observe things which are complementary to them. These
connections, in due time, will lead our nation towards the
apex of the entrepreneurial pyramid.
 E-Connect
The inaugural edition of the meet, which has the potential
of disrupting the startup ecosystem in India, commenced
with delegates from the host IIT Madras, IIT Bombay, IIT
Hyderabad, IIIT Hyderabad and IIT Guwahati on board; in
presence of Faculty Advisor of E-Cell IIT Madras, Prof
Ashwin Mahalingam.

Prof Mahalingam is among the most entrepreneurially

enthusiastic people in the IIT Madras campus promoting
and spreading the word about entrepreneurship on various
platforms and
communities. Quoting
entrepreneurship as a
packet which needs to be
unpacked and catered
with accurately, not just
precision, enveloping the
exact definition of
entrepreneurship which
at times seems extremely
sexy or the perils of
entrepreneurship gets
highlighted; he emphasized on the importance of
delivering the refined and extremely correct words about
entrepreneurship.
The prolific thoughts of the Advisor show a glimpse of the Entrepreneurial
activities at IIT Madras which can be visualized as a channel of four well
defined blocks:

 IDEAS: They emerge from Research Labs, Hostels and the innovation
hub of IIT Madras - Centre for Innovation (Cɸ) which is an initiative
especially for undergraduates to experiment and transform their idea
into reality. Only a fraction of these ideas are the ones that can be
commercialized but these segments heavily contribute to the fostering
of entrepreneurship in the campus.

 PRE-INCUBATION: A vital link between ideation and incubation where

the ideas experience a test run. Nirmaan and Gopalakrishnan-
Deshpande Centre (GDC) are the bodies which fall under this category.
Nirmaan is basically a group of startups which are ready with an idea
and want a test run; though it is confined to institute students. GDC is
similar to Nirmaan but with a crisp vision and it is mainly for professors.
Apart from these bodies, MS in Entrepreneurship, which dates back to
the 70s era, is another initiative to promote the pre-incubation
ideology where the final thesis is a business plan which may or may not
be implemented by the individual based on their future goals.

 INCUBATION: A few years back, the incubation phase was reorganised

and grouped under IITM Incubation Cell which resides in IITM Research
Park. Incubation Cell is a group of incubators such as Rural Technology
and Business Incubator (RTBI), IITM Bio-Incubator, IITM HTIC MedTech
Incubator.

 SUPPORT: A huge alumni base who have expertise in various fields,

who want to willingly contribute for the betterment of the institute,
motivated the formation of the IITM Entrepreneurship Forum which
acts as an advisory / mentorship body to budding entrepreneurs for
their startup journey. External support from TiE and Keiretsu Forum has
helped entrepreneurs pave their path.
 PRE-
IDEAS INCUBATION

E-CELL

SUPPORT INCUBATION

The E-Cell at IIT Madras acts as a channel to connect the

blocks which seem to be separated by the hard and
constrained boundaries of the blocks.

Even though the above mentioned structure seems impressive,

IIT Madras faces a set of challenges in promoting or increasing
the intensity of entrepreneurial activities. The case is not
different for other institutes which need to deal with their set
of problems. E-Connect can be used as a platform to discuss
the challenges, find solutions and grow to higher levels of
entrepreneurship; share lessons about their initiatives as well
as put forth their future vision about E-Connect.
Some challenges, initiatives and views discussed during the
inaugural edition of E-Connect:

 Challenges and initiatives:

 Higher number of business startups than core-tech
startups
• Initiative: IP Portal where ideas can be submitted and
people with similar ideology can accept a
collaboration to work over the idea.
 Unable to have a direct impact in surrounding region
• Initiative: Proposed a newly furnished agenda and
structure for NEC which aims at helping colleges to
form and regulate an E-Cell.
 E-Cell is becoming an ‘event handling body’
• Initiative: New initiatives to find mentoring for
startups at a broader scale.
 Targeting the correct audience
• Initiative: Proposed a three basket ideology to
classify people and accordingly dedicate events for
each basket; which can also help in post event
analysis.
 Track of work and quality
• Initiative: Proposed a Quality Management Team to
track the work and ensure the quality is satisfactory
and keeps on increasing over the years.
 Views:
 Realizing our common goal, i.e. to promote
entrepreneurship hence forming a work plan and start its
execution.
With several challenges and initiatives shared by several institutes,
they all converged to one single view: to collaborate and work for a
better future of our nation.
 Zero Hour Meet
Various initiatives by institutes can lead to a spark which will
influence a thought and create a view about future
endeavors of E-Connect and other campus related
initiatives. A discussion over these views and thoughts will
lead to a creative abrasion; eventually leading to a clearer
vision about E-Connect.

The Zero Hour Meet is based on three points of discussion

and ideation:
 Initiatives by the institutes during the year.
 Views over the challenges discussed.
 Deciding of short and long term goals.

Starting with the well structured and nurtured initiatives by

IIT Bombay:

 National Entrepreneurship Challenge (NEC) is aimed at helping

colleges to create an entrepreneurial ecosystem for budding
entrepreneurs which is a way to make an impact in the society.
NEC is a multi staged event with a set of tasks to be completed
during the year.
 Freelancers and Co-Founders (FCoF) is a platform to connect
startups to students who share a similar field of interest and
would like to bring their ideas to life.
• Problem: Quality of idea and work will be difficult to
monitor.
 IP Portal is a way to identify commercialized research ideas by
professors and they are subsequently connected to students
who are willing to working in the sector of the proposed idea.
 Eureka is targeted event for startups in ideation phase; in short
the event aims at promoting people / students to come up
with innovative ideas.
• Problem: Some quality startups consider the process to
be prolonged; thus the quality does not see a rise.
 E-Summit is the ultimate event where several events converges
in the form of finale; along with lecture series, intern fair and
pitching platforms.

Moving towards the collaborative initiatives by IIT and IIIT

Hyderabad:

 Megathon is a hackathon with innovative problem statements

to promote innovation; eventually leading to a startup which
can be later incubated.

Moving further to the budding and dedicated initiatives by IIT

Guwahati:

 Scavenger Hunt is an initiative to promote the entrepreneurial

feel in the freshmen. The event focuses on conduction of
entrepreneurial activities with incentives.
 Udgam is the E-Summit of IIT Guwahati which houses several
events like pitchfest, case study competitions, hackathons,
lecture series, and intern fair.
Problem: Lack of participation in the NE region, followed by
lack of mentoring in specific entrepreneurial ecosystems.
Finally the initiative by the host IIT Madras:

 E-Summit houses a bunch of events which cater the three

baskets - (i) not yet motivated, (ii) with a raw startup idea,
(iii) the startups. Lecture series named Inspirit, case study
competition such as Unconference along with Intern Fair
and BizQuiz are crafted for the ‘not yet motivated’ basket.
 Bootcamp caters the second basket of people which
possess a raw startup idea. It is mostly to help them get
support from experts from industry to mould their idea in
the best possible shape.
 Elevate is the pitching platform for startups to get funding
for future endeavors. It is a two staged event with
ElevateX being the first stage. ElevateX is where campus
ambassadors find ideas and startups which are selected
for Elevate.
 E-Awards is an initiative to recognize and reward the
efforts of IITM entrepreneurs and startups. This initiative is
now on the bucket list of many individuals in campus.
The issue of finding an apt environment for every startups has
been a common problem for each participating institute; and this
lack of environment sometimes polarizes the thoughts of
individuals in the campus leading to startups of a particular
sector. Another common problem is the enthusiasm for
entrepreneurship in every campus sees a wobble when it comes
to participation in events. Through a lively discussion and intense
study of the above mentioned initiatives and challenges /
problems faced by the institutes; the Zero Hour Meet concluded
on few goals:

InternFair (Virtual or
Freelancing Startups
Offline?)

Cross Mentorship and

Developing E-Cells (NEC) Resource Portal
– Regional Wise Focus? (Incubation and Funding
Options)

Common B-Plan/Some Co-Founding Teams => IP

other competition Portal (Both students and
(BootCamp) professors)
 Inter Institute Intern Fair: All institutes are a home to a
particular field of startups; for example, IIT Bombay excels in
business startups while IIT Madras dominates the tech startup
sector. Opening several opportunities for individuals to
leverage experience in the field that is potentially the best for
their vision by interning in a startup which will also promote
entrepreneurial thought process as well as development of
stronger academia relation of premier institutes.
 Developing E-Cells in colleges in respectively regions:
Kickstarting an initiative similar to NEC will boost the
entrepreneurial feel across various parts of India as well as it
will motivate people to come up with ideas which can disrupt
the conventional world.
 Cross Institute Mentoring and Resource portal: Every
institute dominates a set of topics; and advices about such
topics can be shared with the individuals of other institutes to
enhance their understanding. Similarly the resource pool can
be shared rather than each institute researching and building
them from scratch.
 Common B-plans and other competitions: As startups
evolve, they need a market to test their products. Thus creating
a common beta-market will help startups to identity the perfect
market for their product in a more efficient way as well as this
may induce a wider set of ideas which can be exploited in
future.
 Inter Institute IP Portal: This initiative will provide a wider
perspective to students for their future endeavors as well as a
better bonding between students and professors across the
nation.
 Pan E-Cell Summit
After few intense discussion hours which led to a set of goals, the
Pan E-Cell Summit is motivated to pen down an action plan for the
upcoming year thereby achieving all the short term goals along
with some evident progress in the long term ones.

 A tech portal for internships and ideation:

• This portal aimed to serve as IP and FCoF type portal.
• Satisfying the demand and supply for internships and
projects proposed by the students and professors; it will
help in broadening the reach of like minded people into
various institutes across India.
• Once the portal is launched, it should be active and serve
its purpose; hence all institutes will have to bring some
minimum number of startups onboard as well as spread
the word among students.
• Resume is a vital point while applying for an internship. To
simplify the process, each student needs to upload a
general resume which will be followed by a section where
points related to the prerequisites of the intern can be
highlighted. Thus the final step will be allowing access to
the resume to the representative of the startups which is
the individual is applying.
• Startups applying to hire interns through the portal will
have to oblige to the compulsory stipend policy. But to
promote more involvement, on-campus startups (i.e. at
least one co-founder in an academic year in the institute)
can be barred from compulsory stipend policy.
 • With the above mentioned points, the portal may be
built by IIT Bombay though a confirmation is expected
before further steps. This portal will tune active in
Winter 2018.

 Inter Institute Entrepreneurial competitions:

• Expansion of the E-Connect to other members of E-Cell
in the institutes.
• Along with every E-Connect meet, the E-Cell heads can
be accompanied by a contingent for inter institute
competitions to increase collaboration and promote a
sporting environment among the participating
institutes.
• E-Connect can also be followed by a Startup Expo for
the participating institutes which will serve as a
platform for entrepreneurs to interact.
• E-Connect should be hosted by different institutes each
year to create an awareness about this bold move.

 Cross mentoring and resource sharing:

• The topic can be kept on hold as this needs approvals
from mentor and resource pool heads across all
participating institutes.
• Though this topic won’t be kept on hold for long as the
next meet can be tried and pushed alongside an E-
Connect type meet of mentors.
• Till then, one can interact with mentors and make the
links of the websites available on the portals owned by
E-Cells and EDCs.
 Vision for the next E-Connect

• The topic of discussions which led to an action plan should

yield results by the next E-Connect.
• E-Connect should have a greater interaction and involvement
of other institutes. Visualizing the future E-Connect with
contingents flying to the host institutes, it will lead to
interactions and this can help institutes leverage their
experience on various initiatives of other participating
institutes and then apply them in their campus. Apart from
initiatives, some ways should be planned to increase cross
startup ecosystem and knowledge sharing via various means.
• Contingents accompanied by mentors will lead a much better
vision about future endeavors; thus creating a buzz in the
nation.