Nirvaan 2004 at IIM Lucknow
Entrepreneurship goes the whole hog as IIM Lucknow students
reach Nirvaan

It was surprising to see IIM Lucknow campus bustling with activity on the 15th of August, despite it being a national holiday and a Sunday to boot. Nirvaan, the countrywide intrapreneurship business plan contest organized by Abhiyan (the Entrepreneurship and Venture Capital Cell of IIM Lucknow) was responsible for all this activity. Abhiyan has been conducting this event in association with Nucleus Software since the past two years.

Nirvaan 2004 went beyond a business plan contest and included workshops on entrepreneurship and talks by eminent industry practitioners also. The response of the student body made it clear that claims of MBAs not being inclined towards entrepreneurship are evidently false.

The event was kicked off with a workshop on entrepreneurship by Mr. Akash Sethia (IIML 97) who had refused a high paying job from campus to start his own venture christened Cerebral Group. He shared his experiences and gave the students specific advice on becoming a successful entrepreneur. The students were excited to find that someone like them could successfully tread the less beaten path.

Mr. Mahesh Murthy, whose name has been associated with organizations such as Microsoft, Pepsi, Intel, Channel V and is currently CEO of the venture capital firm Passionfund kept the audience captured for over two and half hours with a talk on what entrepreneurship is and what makes a successful entrepreneur. Mr. Murthy's frankness and openness to questions was well received by the audience.

The day was capped with the intrapreneurship business plan competition which saw participation by students from IIM Calcutta, IIM Bangalore, IIM Lucknow, FMS, NITIE and Narsee Monjee. A total of nine participants had been short listed from an enthusiastic response received from all over the country and faced an evaluation panel equally composed of academics and industry practitioners. While academia was represented by Professors Mohammed Akbar, Anadi Pande and M. Ravi Sundar of IIM Lucknow, industry was represented by Mr. Akash Sethia, Mr. Mahesh Murthy and Mr. Vishnu Dusad (MD of Nucleus Software). The business plans presented by the participants were a result of the summer training recently undergone by them and were related to the sectors they had been exposed to.

The home side was not disappointed with Pankaj Patwari of IIM Lucknow picking up the first prize (Rs 20,000) and Sundar Chandrasekaran (Rs 10,000). Priya Ramdev of FMS Delhi picked up the second prize (Rs 15,000) along with the special prize for the most creative idea (Rs 5,000). The topics of the presentation varied from Dollar - Rupee Option Products for Treasury (Sourabh P Pandey - IIM Bangalore) to Home Loans Made Easy Solutions (Rajini Vislavath - IIM Calcutta).

It has been Abhiyan's perspective that intrapreneurship is an area which could involve more people and have a great impact on existing businesses. Nirvaan is an initiative by Abhiyan to promote this hitherto overlooked and ignored aspect of entrepreneurship.