Day 1 of the Techno-Entrepreneurship Program lived upto its expectation.
Here is the schedule for the day: Day 1
The morning session started with Prof. B.H. Jajoo going through the program structure. He stressed on the fact that it was just a getting wet exercise and not swimming. He also stressed on the intensive nature of the program which is very true.
The next session was taken by Dr. Madhu Mehta on the "Challenges of the Techno-Entrepreneurship Journey." He used slides extensively to illustrate what people think and then he would share his personal experiences and his take on things. His insight and practicality was particularly interesting.
Few of the things he put differently were:
- "There is Business and there are Entrepreneurial Ventures"
- "Me last attitude" expected from an Entrepreneur
(Some of this may make sense only in the context they were made)
Next session of the day was again taken by Madhu Bhai and was on "Appreciating, Analysing and Generating Ideas". Here he made us think and look at things differently. One of the points he made was first assuming there exists a solution and then think of the solution. In this way one can leverage the full potential of the human mind by negating human tendency.
Next up was a session by Prof. B. H Jajoo on "Innovation Drivers in IT." I must say this man is in love with his gadgets. He showed us everything from small USB drives, cool LED displays, latest PDAs, flexible keyboards for PDAs, USB HDD with media codecs and a small compass box sized linux box for multimedia (recordings, playing movies and music etc.). Did I miss something ? LoL. Look liked he owned most of it and was showing us things one by on like a magician popping up things from his hat.
Then we had a brief overview of "Elements of Business Plan" by Mr. K. Thyagrajan and Madhu Bhai. One of the things he stated differently from the more well-known belief was that a business plan is first for the entrepreneur and then for others. The premise of this statement was that an entrepreneur should work on his business plan first to think about all aspects throughly and internalize the venture. Later, he can adapt it to VC needs.
Later, we formed groups and discussed a case study of Homestead (www.homestead.com) a company which is out to create website for everyone and affect the lives of many in a positive way. It was really interesting to know about Homestead and its "Employees come first" culture. I believe building such an ecosystem is the trademark of an "Built to Last" company.
The last session was an informal meet with Kaushal Mehta, founder of Motif India a BPO startup. I did have an small interesting discussion with him about how he planned his entreprenurial journey and its much different then what I have/would like to do. (Would share it if I take out some time.)
Overall, I feel the first day is making me feel I have done the right thing by attending this program. I met people from diverse backgrounds, currently sharing my room with an interesting chap named Yatish from IISc (Sree u reading this?), met people who are facing problems with their startups and issues they haven't thought of before, read case studies and met incubates at NirmaLabs.
Now, all I can say is I would be making an effort of trying to sleep but I have no clue when I would really sleep.
[update]
I did end my post here but the day was still not over and so much more happened before I slept. Yatish and me discussed everything from things that interest us to, creativity, imagination, product design, education, programming, quest to learn, entrepreneurship, cultural ethos of an organization, ideas, entrepreneurship and life in general. We must have wished eachother goodnight for atleast 3 times in between but then again continued to share our views. It was only after 4am that we slept.