New Delhi [India], Feb.11 : The two-day ICON 2017 titled "Dream, Build and Grow- Unleashing The Entrepreneurial Potential" organised by School of Management on February 9 and 10, 2017 brught together academics, researchers and entrepreneurs to discuss the perspectives of responsible development of small and medium -sized enterprises in a dynamic environment.
The conference debated the contemporary theme, from a wide range of perspectives: economic, social, environmental, organisational, technological, marketing, competitiveness and human angle.
This prodigious event commenced with the inaugral session. After invoking the blessings of Goddess Saraswati, Dr. P.K.Goel, Dean, School of Management formally welcomed the delegates. In his welcome address, he provided a backdrop for the delibrations to be held during the conference. He traced the antecedants of entrepreneurship in Indian society thereby concluding that it's the innate nature of Indians to strive towards entrepreneurship.
He also highlighted the various initiatives taken by the Government, DIPP and Niti Aayog towards boosting entrepreneurship in India.
It was followed by a welcome note by our honourable Vice Chancellor, Dr. Deependra Kumar Jha. In his address, he warned those who were still procrastinating over taking the entrepeneurship plunge by highlighlighting that the conditions would never be perfect, the signal would never be green enough to start.
Hence, he encouraged the still-skeptical future entrepreneurs to DO IT NOW. After Dr. Jha's address the official release of the book of proceedings was done by the guests of honour - Mr. Swagat Sarangi, Founder, Smytten, Prof. M. Akbar, Professor, IIM Lucknow, Dr. Deependra Jha, Vice Chancellor, G.D. Goenka University, Dr. P.K. Goel, Dean, School of Management and Dr. Tanuja Kaushik, Conference Convener (and) HoD, School of Management. The guest of honour Prof. M. Akbar, Professor, IIM Lucknow in his address shared that in his career spanning more than 35 years, he is yet to come across a standard definition of entrepreneurship.
Thereby, he detailed on what an entrereneur did rather than what they were. He traced the antecedants of entrepreneurship since over 200 thousand years back till date including the Veda period, Islamic Revolution to the most recent Internet and Biotech revolutions.
He thereby zeroed on the day entrepreneurship was born to the day man started walking. Factually, he highlighted that 95 percent of businesses fail within the first three years and the rest five percent remain at a high risks.
He suggested some measures for future entrepreneurs to manage this risk like imbibing the lean start-up method, employing business plan canvas and focussing on innovation led value creation.
Chief guest Swagat Sarangi, Founder, Smytten- a 1.5 year old start-up, gave a very realistic picture of entrepreneurship by dispelling myths about entrepreneurhip being viewed as freedom at work, having own time and earning big money.
He pushed the future entrepreneurs to dream big, develop excellent sales skills, be humble and resilinet, armour themselves to take rejections and nurture a healthy support system.
This was followed by an extremely though provoking and enriching panel discussion on the theme, " Women Empowered".
The panellists, were Ms. Ragini Yechury, Founder Chairperson of Women in Logistics and Transport, Dr. Shweta Singh, Founder (Director) Ennoble IP (and) STEP UP 360, Ms. Sharmila Das, Founder and Chairwoman at Purple Audacity Research (and) Innovation Pvt. Ltd, Ms. Qamar Khan, Founder, Kashmiri Kitchen and Ms. Namrataa Arora Singh, Founder and Coach, Life Beyond Motherhood. Each of these iron willed woman entrepereneurs, shared her remarkable journey dotted by adversities- be it unsupportive parents or spouses, societal pressures, orthodox views or environment unstablility.
They wowed the audience with their stories of grit, determination and passion for believing in their dreams.
Each one had a definition for entrepreneurship, which was not learnt from books, but from their experiences in life.
While Ms. Shweta termed it as turning problems to solutions, Ms. Qamar defined it as milking opportunity at every instance. For Ms. Namrataa, it was being courageous and for Ms. Ragini it was taking problems head on. For Ms. Sharmila, entrepreneurship was about not compromising on the core value at any instant. This " spirit of entrepreneurship" was shared by each one of the panellists alike and they advised the women to dream, not feel self- constrained, prioritise their work, increase networking and most importantly, work with integrity.
In the end of the inaugural session a vote of thanks was extended by Dr. Tanuja Kaushik, the convener of this conference, to all the dignitaries, delegates, guests and G.D.Goenka University team for their unconditional contribution in making this conference a huge success.
The second half of day one was dedicated to four technical sessions dealing with subjects: Financing: Risks and Returns for Entrepreneurship Firms, Entrepreneurial Marketing: New Perspectives and Tools, Entrepreneurship Education and Skilling , Eco-Environments and Sustainable Entrepreneurial Enterprises.
Session I was chaired by Dr. D. R Agarwal and Dr. P. K Goel. Session II was chaired by Ms. Sharmila Das and Dr. Tanuja Kaushik. Session III was chaired by Ms. Shweta Singh and Dr. Gyanesh K Sinha and Session IV was chaired by Dr. Ms. Namrataa Arora. Day one of the conference full of inquistitive, rigorous and critical sharings was concluded with a cultural evening comprising of enthralling performances by students of G.
D. Goenka University. The day two of this conference started with a plenary discussion on the theme "Role of entrepreneurs and competitive cooperation for economic well-being and development of markets" chaired by Dr.
H. V Verma, Professor, FMS and speakers Mr. Karun Thareja, Head- Marketing, Faircent.com, Prof. Arturo, Professor, Politecnico di Milano and Dr. P. K Goel, Dean, School of Management, GDGU. Prof. Verma set the stage by pondering about the oxymoron nature of the theme where competition and cooperation were set at opposite continuum.
He further emphasized that entrepreneurship required a macroscopic non-tunneled view of any problem. This was further deliberated by Prof Arturo who emphasized that it was no longer suffice for founders to develop a vision but for the successors to implement it over the years.
Mr. Karun took an opposite stand by asserting that an entrepreneur doesn't see any competition, but makes his offering so unique that it stands apart from others.
Dr. Goel further encouraged the students by strongly propagating them to unlearn their learnings from classes and being passionate about being job givers than job takers.
The discussion took an interesting turn with Prof. Verma terming the Indian entrepreneurs as "jugadu" rather than innovation driven. Overall, the panel suggested future entrepreneurs to have a unique offering and be a stickler for quality control.
After the plenary session five technical sessions on the subjects- Entrepreneurial Dimensions and Economic Growth, Make In India and Start Up India, Operations and Logistical Challenges for New Venturing, HR Practices for Promoting Entrepreneurship and Innovation, Public Policy and Government Interventions as Pillars of Entrepreneurial Growth were organised.
Session I was chaired by Mr. Karun Thareja and Mr. Pankaj Saxena. Session II was chaired by Mr. Pankaj Saxena and Dr. Tanuja Kaushik. Session III was chaired by Mr. Rajeev Madan and Dr. Gyanesh K Sinha. Session IV was chaired by Mr. Karun Thareja and Dr. Satyender P Singh. Session V was Dr. Mridul Dharwal and Dr. Pradeep K. Goel. In the end of the conference valedictory session was held. In this session, Ms. Raunica Ahluwalia, Assistant Professor, GDGU briefly explained the conduct of the entire conference and shared the insights presented by the dignitaries and delegates.
Dr. Arindam Bhattacharya, MD, BCG India was the Chief Guest for this session. He elaborated the changes in entrepreneurial ecosystem and prevalence of intrapreneurial mindsets within organisations.
Dr. P.K. Goel, Dean, School of Management extended a vote of thanks to the delegates and dignitaries. He acknowledged the hard work of everyone who were associated with the successful conduct of this conference.
He shared that for this conference, The School of Management received over 100 papers from national and international delegates.
The conference saw an active delegate participation from over 46 academic institutions and corporates spanning across 5 countries.
56 papers were shortlisted for publication and 6 papers have been selected to be published in the School of Management's Bi-annual Journal titled G D Goenka Business Review.
Due to the immense insights and discerning observations of the dignitaries and delegates this conference has led to tremendous inspiring and change facilitating ideas, opinions, suggestions and viewpoints which can be of immense importance in understanding the entrepreneurial ecosystem of India.
Source: ANI
