Centre for Innovation Incubation and Entrepreneurship (CIIE) at IIM-Ahmedabad co-hosted the Indian STEPs and Business Incubators’ Association (ISBA) conference with National Design Business Incubator(NDBI) at National Design Institute, Ahmedabad on 6-8th March. ISBA conference is an annual conclave where STEPs and Technology Based Incubators all over the country come together and share their experiences and knowledge so as to grow cohesively and encourage innovation. The theme of the conference this year was “Design Change Manage Growth” and Prof. B. H. Jajoo, Dean, IIM-Ahmedabad addressed the inaugural function and talked about innovations, and said how the innovations should be such that they make a common man’s life easier. He also said that the word “entrepreneur” in some ways is a very limiting term, and to make it more inclusive, they should be addressed as “starters”, i.e., the ones who start. He concluded by saying that it is more important to invest in a “team” than “people”.

Along with ISBA, CIIE also hosted the National Advisory Committee on Science & Technology Entrepreneurship Parks and Technology Business Incubators (STEP/TBI) review meeting on 5th-6th March. During the two days, CIIE saw active interactions between the policy makers, funding & monitoring team from DST, experts on the committee and incubation managers. About 40 incubators from different parts of India came down for the review meeting

Online Showcase to Investors

In its unique initiative to showcase the interesting investment-worthy opportunities to investors for further exploration, CIIE has launched a weekly showcase programme for startup deals. The idea is to showcase handpicked startups that are thoroughly evaluated and vetted by the CIIE team and its mentors to investors willing to provide funds in the range upwards of 20lacs individually. The showcase is done on a web conferencing platform to allow multi location participation. The first startup showcase was successfully held on Tuesday, 22nd March where more than 7 investors were participants to the virtual presentation made by MindEdutainment which operates as a curriculum and delivery organization to develop Higher Order Thinking Skills (HOTS) amongst students of UKG to Grade VIII in a fun and effective manner.

For more details on the initiative please get in touch with Khushalee at the following email address: khushalee@iimahd.ernet.in

TUB seminar

The Centre for Innovation Incubation and Entrepreneurship, Indian Institute of Management, Ahmedabad, Gujarat collaborated with ‘Technische Universität Berlin’ (TUB) to organize an international seminar on ‘Innovation management in companies and organizations in South Asia’ during March 14-17, 2011. Technische Universtät Berlin is one of the largest technical universities in Germany with strong international links to Asian Universities. TUB has a large alumni network with more than 5000 Alumni in 136 countries. The seminar covered following main topics:

1. Innovation management


2. Development trends and future challenges in India


3. Entrepreneurship


4. Sustainable Development


5. Indo-German cooperation in science, economy and Development Cooperation

Mentor Edge

Mentoredge has now spread across 8 cities [Delhi, Kolkata, Mumbai, Pune, Ahmedabad, Chennai, Hyderabad and Bangalore]. Mentor Edge conducts Mentor Rendezvous every two months, in each of these cities, so as to introduce the mentors to local entrepreneurs in a one – to – one setting.

Mentor Rendezvous’ are a common platform where the Mentors and entrepreneurs come together. The aim is to facilitate and connect Entrepreneurs with the Mentors over a 45 minute slot, which is allotted before the event. The event lasts about half a day, where dedicated slots are assigned for mentees and mentors to meet.

The event is meant to be first hand interactions where we introduce the 2 parties and encourage them to carry this relationship forward as per mutual agreement. The intention is to create an entrepreneurial ecosystem across the country, where participants are benefited by the collective pool of intelligence.
Entrepreneurs interested in being a part of the event can visit our website for further details [http://mentoredge.com] and register as a Mentee, marking the city where you wish to attend as your preference.

Please feel free to mail us on mentoredge@ciieindia.org if you would like to connect with the team. Please use the following format as subject for the mail: Interested in Mentor Rendezvous {city}

Dates
2nd April - Ahmedabad
9th April – Pune
23rd April – Kolkata
7th May – Bangalore, Chennai
14th May – Hyderabad