SHILLONG: IIM Shillong organised Emerge’18, the 7th Entrepreneurship summit on November 17 and 18, hosting entrepreneurs across the country. Director of the Institute, Prof Keya Sengupta inaugurated the 2 day event in the presence of senior faculty member Prof Sanjoy Mukherjee and other dignitaries.
The idea of EmergE “emanated from a strong desire to foster entrepreneurial acumen in the academic products of the institute and futher, to celebrate the true spirit of entrepreneurship and provide a platform for sharing ideas among industry, academia and entrepreneurs,” remarked Prof Sengupta while speaking during the inauguration.
The theme for EmergE 2018 is ‘Embracing Northeast’ that resonates with modern-day startup ideas and intends to mine the opportunities that lie untapped within Northeast India. “Don’t try to be employed; try to be the employer,” highlighted Prof Sengupta while emphasizing the institute’s initiative towards nurturing budding entrepreneurs.
“IIM Shillong also has APJ Abdul Kalam Research Centre for Policy Research & Analysis which is constantly working in figuring out ways that would ensure more businesses emanating through facilitation of the Institute,” she added.
Farrhad Acidwalla, founder of Rockstah Media delivered a talk walking through his journey from an aero modelling enthusiast to a technology aficionado. “Don’t invest on too many variables. Keep it simple. Don’t talk; just do” was his advice to student assuring them that passion is all it takes to be successful.
A workshop was conducted by Piyul Mukherjee and Pia Mollback- Verbic from Quipper Research Private Limited. This workshop enlightened the participants about the importance of knowing the end customers in any business and also highlighted the role of “Qualitative research” in attaining the necessary insights. This session garnered great interaction from the students in reviewing the various business aspects of a brand that they had chosen.
The panel discussion on the emerging trends on handicrafts brought to the table multiple facets of the handicraft industry and its evolution over the past few decades. Sandeep Sangaru, founder of Sangaru Design Objects Pvt. Ltd, Sona Puri, co-founder and CEO of The India Craft House, Dhiraj Thakuria, managing director of NEHHDCDilip Barooah, director of Fabric Plus Pvt. Ltd and Sakshi Talwar, co-founder of Rugs and Beyond discussed topics such as digitalisation,
) commoditization and branding of handicrafts steering the conversation towards the promotion of the industry in North east India.
The second day of the summit began with a panel discussion on Fintech, essentially the connection between the company and how it is an enabler to do something bigger in financial inclusion. Durlov Baruah, founder at Kuhipaat (Payment Solution_NorthEast), Nitin Mathur, director at TAVAGA, Anubhav Jain, co-founder and head of risk at Qbera and Visweshwaran Narasimhan, assistant VP at FSS touched on a prevalent problem of reluctance of people to adopt apps and services based on financial assistance and then went on to discuss the effectiveness of various banking transaction technologies.
The latter half of day 2 saw an expert talk by Amit Kumar Agarwal, founder and CEO at NoBroker.com, wherein he shared snippets from his entrepreneurial journey.
