The Entrepreneurship Cell, IIT Bombay

Vision

The Entrepreneurship Cell, IIT Bombay targets to help in the development of India's entrepreneurial ecosystem by enabling easy and efficient interaction between its major components spanning students, working professionals, aspiring and existing entrepreneurs, mentors, angel investors, venture capital firms and corporates through events like interactive sessions, competitions and conferences

History

The Entrepreneurship Cell was formed by students and some Professors of IIT Bombay with the mission of promoting the culture of entrepreneurship within the campus of IIT Bombay in October, 1998. Since then the Cell has launched several initiatives for budding entrepreneurs in IIT Bombay and other colleges across India. E-Cell, IIT Bombay was one of the founding members of the National Entrepreneurship Network

Activities

E-Cell conducts various International and National competitions as well as events specifically for the students of IIT Bombay

The Entrepreneurship Summit

The Entrepreneurship Summit is the flagship event of E-Cell which is a platform for bringing together budding entrepreneurs, venture capitalists, investors, start-ups and other major contributors to the entrepreneurial ecosystem. This networking event gives a chance for people to interact and help build successful ventures. The summit also showcases the latest global trends in entrepreneurship. E-Summit in the past has been a host to personalities like Mr. Kanwal Rekhi, Muhammad Yunus, Nandan Nilekani, Tulsi Tanti, Adi Godrej, S Ramadorai, Ronnie Screwvala, Subhash Chandra, Kishore Biyani, Ajit Balakrishnan, Jim Beach amongst others.

Virtual Stock Market

Virtual Stock Market online game that simulates the stock market - to create an environment of friendly competition that will enable future entrepreneurs to understand how the economy at large can affect individual companies.

Panel Discussions

Panel discussion on latest topics like silicon valley and Indian ecosystem, social entrepreneurship, job v/s entrepreneurship and latest trends in entrepreneurship take place.

Startup Expo

Startup expo invites most innovative startups from across the country. The startups reach out to thousands of its potential customers and network with potential investors. It gives the attendees an opportunity to learn form the success stories of these enterprises.

Envoyage

EnVoyage is an initiative by E-Cell to take the flavour of Entrepreneurship Summit to different cities of India. With the help of College Representatives (CRs), a series of free Workshops is held across various cities of India between in January. In the workshops the attendees are made aware about entrepreneurship by the means of speaker sessions and interactive games.

Eureka!

Eureka! is the international Business Plan competition of IIT Bombay organized by the Entrepreneurship Cell. The first edition of Eureka! was launched in 1999. It is regarded as Asia’s largest B-plan competition by CNN and Thomson Reuters. It holds the honour of having been able to inspire B plan competitions across India and elsewhere. The format of Eureka! includes one-to-one mentoring and a transparent judging process. It’s a 5-month-long educational experience, designed to emulate the process of raising funds for one’s startup, covering all the aspects right from writing a business plan to pitching it before an investor. There are two tracks in Eureka! which run parallel to each other. The Eureka! business track which is open for all businesses and the Eureka! social track which is only for those startups which create or have the potential to create a tangible impact on the society.

Mentor's Meet

The semi finalists receive extensive support to improve their B-plans. Each team submits its initial draft of their B-plan online which is then assigned a mentor, specific to its field, to help them formalise the final business plan. Taking the mentoring process one step further, a workshop as well as a meeting with a panel of distinguished mentors consisting of investors, venture capitalists and experts in various fields is held in December and semi-finalists are given mentoring on Finance, Marketing, Business Plan and Pitching.

National Entrepreneurship Challenge

The National Entrepreneurship Challenge was launched in July, 2013 to help colleges across India establish their own Entrepreneurship Cell. The competition is designed and structured so as to help the participants step by step which would ultimately lead to formulation of their own E-Cell. The participants have to do a series of tasks to spread entrepreneurial awareness and help the startups in their campus.

Entrepreneurship and Business Club

The vision of the Entrepreneurship and Business club is to create a platform of entrepreneurship enthusiasts where students, faculty members of IIT Bombay and professionals can interact on a regular basis for discussions brainstorming sessions, informal sessions and networking. Basic Track events are held for enthusiasts and advanced track events for experienced students.

Speaker Sessions

Several Talks are conducted round the year spanning different sectors from basic to advance. Sessions on introduction to entrepreneurship, school to startup, social media marketing, idea generation, e-commerce, common mistakes the startups make, funding for startups, legal and Intellectual Property issues are some specifics amongst others.

Workshops

Competitions

Enspace

Enspace is the biannual entrepreneurship magazine of IIT Bombay. It enjoys a huge readership in the campus. Enspace contains stories of successful startups from IITs and beyond. It also features several news items on trends and latest techniques. The enspace blog keeps the student community connected with the startup ecosystem.

Idea Validation Platform

It is the platform to get your idea validated by experts. The Platform runs throughout the year.

Startup Bootcamp

The Startup Bootcamp is a 10-week-long program, during which ideas are made startup worthy with the help of an efficient team building exercise as well as extensive mentoring. The selected startups are also offered incubation in SINE (Society for Innovation and Entrepreneurship), IIT Bombay

Desai Sethi Centre for Entrepreneurship

IIT Bombay will be soon establishing an Entrepreneurship Centre at its premises, with a generous funding received from Mr. Bharat Desai and Ms. Neerja Sethi, under the aegis of The Desai Sethi Family Foundation. The new Centre, which will be named 'Desai Sethi Centre for Entrepreneurship', will foster entrepreneurship and technology innovation through new programmes for education and research, multi-disciplinary courses, research laboratories and partnerships. Students in the programme will receive instruction and mentorship from IIT Bombay faculty as well as distinguished guest faculty from leading international institutions. The establishment of new Centre was announced by the Director of IIT Bombay during the inaugural session of Entrepreneurship Summit (E-Summit 2014), which is being organized by the Entrepreneurship Cell of the Institute from 1–2 February 2014.

Deferred Placement Policy

With the start-up ecosystem of the institute flourishing and students being keener on taking up entrepreneurial challenges, the Placement Cell has played its part by announcing the introduction of the DPP(Deferred Placement Policy). This policy aims to encourage students who’re looking to work on their own start-up idea by safeguarding them against the risk of having to forgo campus placements. According to this initiative, students interested in pursuing an entrepreneurial activity would be given an option to defer their placements by 2 years. The need for a DPP(Deferred Placement Policy) was envisaged due to the current trend of rising interest in entrepreneurship, partly owing to the success of The Entrepreneurship Cell’s efforts in fostering an entrepreneurial culture within and outside the institute.