IIM Raipur Launches Enspirit'12, The Entrepreneurship Fest

PRLog (Press Release) - Feb. 20, 2012 - Indian Institute of Management Raipur has announced its flagship Entrepreneurship event “Enspirit”. The event which is the first of its kind aims to encourage students and entrepreneurs to receive guidance and funding from investors across the country. The winners of this event shall receive a seed fund of Rs 1 Lakh. The event will be organized in IIM Raipur on 10th March 2012.
The theme of the event is “Fostering Entrepreneurship beyond metros”. IIM Raipur has partnered with “CII-Chhattisgarh”, India’s largest Angel Investor Network “Indian Angel Network”, “TiE Napur” for the event. They will provide guidance to the winners of the competition. The event is being organized with assistance from Indian Oil and Chhattisgarh Tourism.  The business plan competition shall be evaluated by Shri H K Mittal from the Department of Science and Technology, Government of India along with angel investors.  The event is open to new and existing businesses.
The event will also feature a summit where founders of the biggest enterprises of the past one decade will come and share their experiences with students and business community of the state.  The discussion will be focussed on promoting Entrepreneurship in the state.
Prof B S Sahay, Director, IIM Raipur stressed the need for such events as the country needs more job creators to maintain its growth rate. States like Chhattisgarh which have seen many home grown enterprises in the past few decades many more of such enterprises to become a model state. He congratulated the Entrepreneurship cell of IIM Raipur for taking the initiative and hoped that some years down the line the state will see business that received mentoring from this competition.
He also launched the website of the competition where teams can register for the competition and receive updates about the event. The summit which is being organized on 11th march will see Founders of RedBus.in, Globals, Eko and many other ventures share their  guru mantras with student community. This is a unique opportunity for students to understand what it takes to start a new business and how to keep on moving even when the path ahead may not be clear.
The event coordinator Aditya said that IIMs are focussing on making students job creators rather than job seekers. This is particularly needed as the country will get younger and there would be many more jobs needed which present business cannot satisfy. With states like Chhattisgarh clocking double digit growth it is imperative that such initiatives are encouraged and many more such platforms are created which offer opportunities for students to start their ventures.
IIM Raipur is also coming up with a Centre for Innovation and Entrepreneurship where at a later stage ideas will be incubated and students will get necessary infrastructure to support their ideas.