“The entrepreneur is our visionary, the creator in each of us. We’re born with that quality and it defines our lives as we respond to what we see, hear, feel, and experience.” - Michael Gerber

Last weekend, a bunch of accomplished Entrepreneurs addressed an audience of budding Entrepreneurs of IIM Calcutta and other B-Schools in and around Kolkata. With a plethora of personal experiences and a great deal of valuable knowledge about dynamics of starting ones own business to offer, they ignited the young minds with a spirit of Entrepreneurship.

Ascent, the annual Entrepreneurship Summit conducted jointly by the Entrepreneurship Cell (E-Cell) and the Centre for Entrepreneurship and Innovation (CEI), IIM Calcutta, took place in great style over this past weekend, with leading venture capitalists, entrepreneurs, newspaper columnists and diplomats sharing the dias.

Ascent is an initiative to promote the spirit of entrepreneurship in the country, by bringing together entrepreneurs and young management students for a free exchange of views and ideas. The two day event was attended by participants from close to 10 colleges from this eastern part of the country. The event aimed at providing young managerial students an overview of the various challenges they would face in an entrepreneurial career, and to equip them with the knowledge, acumen and support they would require to start and successfully run their businesses.

The first day started off with a keynote address by Mr. Bipin K. Vohra, Chairman, NSHM Knowledge campus, and President of the Rs.3500 crore SPS Group. Mr. Vohra, in an inspirational speech, discussed how he started his business from scratch, the challenges he faced on the way, and the lessons he learnt.

In the next session, Mr. Hari Bala, CEO of OnTrack Systems, held an interactive session that introduced the audience to Roger Hamilton’s Wealth Dynamics – a profiling system that assesses one’s personality. The most engaging part of his talk was when he asked a couple of people to volunteer and identified their wealth profiles and suggested areas they would be well suited for.  One could be from the 8 wealth profiles: The creator, Star, Supporter, Deal Maker, Trader, Accumulator, Lord and Mechanic, belonging to a particular profile deeply influences the way one works, and creates wealth. He suggested that the best way to be successful is to partner with people who have a complimentary wealth profile. Following this, a sense of introspection took over the audience.

Mr. Satya Prabhakar, CEO of Sulekha.com, easily the most engaging and charismatic speaker of the day, held an enthralling session about his learnings from running a venture as big as Sulekha. In his inimitable style, through a fun presentation made up entirely of what he called “The “˜Q’s,’Cs’ and “˜Vs’” (Quotes, Cartoons and Videos for the uninitiated), he stressed on the essential attitudes required to be a successful entrepreneur and manager. His delightful sense of humour and witty remarks had the audience smiling throughout the session.

One of the quotes that caught our fancy was:  “Entrepreneurship is like wooing a gorgeous girl. You need whole-hearted desire, complete commitment, unflagging perseverance, undivided attention and undying enthusiasm. Oh, you also need some moxie, chutzpah, daring and sacrifice. She may still not relent. But sometimes, with a bit of luck, she will, and that’s payday, buddy!”

He also spoke about the new ad campaign of Sulekha.com and enlightened the audience about the philosophy on which the brand is built.

The post-lunch session by Her Excellency, Beth Payne, U.S. Counsel General in Kolkata was focused on the importance of entrepreneurs in an economy, and on entrepreneurial and educational opportunities in the United States of America. She highlighted how keen she is to facilitate investments in India.

The final session for the day was by Ms. Swati Gautam, an impressive lady and a leading custom lingerie maker in Kolkata. In a candid and simple manner, she spoke about her journey as a businesswoman, and the challenges and rewards of being a woman entrepreneur.

The second day of Ascent began with a session by the famed Mr. Amitava Ghose on “How to make effective business plans”. A strategy and corporate finance specialist with twenty years of experience in corporate finance and international banking, he focused mainly on how to pitch for venture capital. The next session was by Rudra Kumar Roy, founder and Senior Product Manager at iViZ Techno Solutions Pvt. Ltd., which was awarded Business Today’s “˜Hottest Startup 2008′ title.  Drawing from his experiences in winning business plan competitions across business schools in India and venture capital for iViz Techno Solutions, he gave an enlightening presentation titled “˜The Art of B-plans’.

Post-lunch session of Day 2 saw the results for the much awaited and intensely contested case-study and B-plan competitions being announced. The Winners of the case study competition were declared from among 37 entries.

1st: Abhishek Chopra,

2nd: Harshvardhan Ketkar

3rd (Joint): Bhaskar Kashyap; Alpesh Chaddha; Sumit Chandra.

Winners of the business idea competition were:

First: Shreya Ginoria,

Second: Smita Singh & Shweta Poddar

Third(joint): Akshay Grover and Shruti Agrawal; Akshay Tapase.

The two esteemed guests then gave individual feedback to each of the participating teams of the B-Plan competition.

Mr. Suneet Singh Bhatia, Core member of E-Cell and one of the organizers of the event, said, “We’re very happy with the success of the event and the enthusiasm and interest shown by the participants. Most importantly, we value the opportunity we had to interact with some great entrepreneurs and leaders, and to hear their views on a range of topics”. Carrying a similar sentiment, Mr. Bhupesh Pangti, Core member of the Centre for Entrepreneurship and Innovation, commented “With the enthusiasm levels seen in these two days, we believe that we have achieved our objective of benefiting the student body in IIMC and beyond”.

Mr. Manish Motwani, President of E-Cell said, “We look forward to organizing more such events for the students which can give them a head start in realizing their dreams as an entrepreneur. We will also bring in i2i soon to present students with further opportunity”. As a concluding remark, Mr. Arjun Khurana, President of the Centre for Entrepreneurship and Innovation, added “We believe that with such kind of events, even if one “˜sleeping tiger’ of IIMC wakes up to the entrepreneurial success awaiting him, our mission is accomplished. We have started this year with a spark in Ascent, and will follow it up with a wildfire in E-Summit 2009″.

In all, the two days proved to be really inspiring and a huge value-addition for all the participants and organizers. As they often say in the world of entrepreneurship:

Let’s keep the fire burning!

With Contributions From,

Samyukktha, Spandana & Tanvi