Eximius 2022 showcases digital financial inclusion, women and social entrepreneurship to technology and healthcare.
Bengaluru, NFAPost: India’s prestigious management institute IIMB hosted two-day entrepreneurship summit at its campus featuring a plethora of events including panel discussions, keynote speeches, workshops, startup expo, case contests and business competitions
According to the press release issued by IIMB, students of IIM Bangalore’s two-year full-time MBA: Post Graduate Programme in Management (PGP) hosted the annual entrepreneurship summit on July 9 and 10..
This year’s event, themed on ‘Start. Scale. Sail.’, was held entirely offline, after a gap of two years. The event included speaker sessions, workshops and business case competitions in the fields of Marketing, Finance, Analytics and more.
Eximius 2022 was inaugurated by IIMB Bangalore Director Prof Rishikesha T Krishnan in the presence of IIMB Alumni Relations & Development Dean Sourav Mukherji, IIMB PGP and PGP in Business Analytics Chairperson R Srinivasan and Chief Guest World Bank Senior Financial Specialist Tushar Arora.
Tushar Arora, in his address, spoke about the need for digital financial inclusion and women entrepreneurship, and how the World Bank has introduced simple tools like BETI, a platform which helps women entrepreneurs maintain digital records of their businesses.
Panel discussions and keynote speeches
NITI Aayog Mission Director for Atal Innovation Mission and Additional Secretary Ramanan Ramanathan stressed on the importance of fostering a culture of entrepreneurship in today’s youth.
“I recommend a three-pronged approach of creating a mindset of entrepreneurship in today’s students, providing them with opportunities to solve real-world problems and supporting them through incubators and accelerators,” said NITI Aayog Mission Director for Atal Innovation Mission and Additional Secretary Ramanan.
Stressing on the ever-increasing importance of technology and its application in different sectors of the economy, Ramanan explained the need for Atmanirbhar Bharat through its five pillars.
In a panel discussion with Ashok Kamath, Akshara Foundation Chairman 1BRIDGE Founder & CEO Madan Padaki explained the rise and importance of Social Entrepreneurship in India.
Madan Padaki stressed on the importance of seizing the right opportunities and said if you can go and create opportunity, people will take it up and adapt to it.
“Social Entrepreneurship is very important in rural India. First, you reach a billion smiles, and a billion-dollar valuation is just a by-product of it,” said Akshara Foundation Chairman 1BRIDGE Founder & CEO Madan Padaki.
During the panel discussion, Ashok Kamath commented on the importance of ventures in rural India. “You cannot exclude rural children from education,” he stressed during the discussion.
In another panel discussion titled: ‘Thinking Health, Thinking Entrepreneurship’, three entrepreneurs in the healthcare field, DRiefcase Cofounder Sohit Kapoor, Uvi Health Cofounder & CEO Mehak Malik and Dozee Health Founder Pritish Gupta shared their entrepreneurial journey and key learnings.
Highlighting the importance of healthcare, DRiefcase Cofounder Sohit Kapoor said it has taken Covid for the whole world to wake up to healthcare.
“The biggest myth about the healthcare industry is that doctors do not like technology. In fact, the onus is on us to provide the doctors with a good solution – the use case needs to be worked out for them,” said DRiefcase Cofounder Sohit Kapoor.
Dozee Health Founder Pritish Gupta pointed out that the challenges in the healthcare system are huge as the numbers are also huge.
Uvi Health Cofounder & CEO Mehak Malik said that the doctor-patient interaction could be a problem, especially in villages.
“You cannot build a minimum viable product in healthcare, so my focus was on a minimum awesome product,” said Uvi Health Cofounder & CEO Mehak Malik.
PolicyBazaar Cofounder Yashish Dahiya in his talk on: ‘How to create a start-up in entirely new space’, reflected on his journey at IIMA.
“IIMA made me realise that I am meant to be an entrepreneur. And right now with PolicyBazaar, a fintech company, we are making deep impact and I am enjoying my journey with all challenges,” said PolicyBazaar Cofounder Yashish Dahiya
While talking about startup culture PolicyBazaar Cofounder Yashish Dahiya entire founding team will have to do a lot with selflessness.
Hevo Data Cofounder Manish Jethani during his talk on: ‘The Rise to being the Powerhouse of Data’, educated the students about the differences between B2B SaaS and B2C Saas. He also highlighted the importance of being open to technology to solve real-world problems.
“If you do not know technology in the next few years, the situation will be similar to being a genius but not knowing how to speak,” said Hevo Data Cofounder Manish Jethani.
Workshops, Startup Expo and Case Competitions
Eximius 2022 included workshop sessions on ‘How to analyse a Stock’ by Avalon Scenes Founder Shashank Udupa, ‘Legal 101 for Start-ups’ by Crystal Legal Managing Partner Jalaj Joshi and ‘How to Start your Own Podcast’ by M-Square Podcasts Host Anurag Manik.
The event also provided an opportunity to startups to showcase their offerings to a diverse crowd of investors, entrepreneurs and customers. Few of the notable start-ups were: Phable, Readon, Neuphony, Multibashi, etc.
Business Competitions
BzzWings, the B-plan competition organised in association with NSRCEL, the innovation and entrepreneurship hub of IIM Bangalore, had teams presenting their ideas that could shape the future of businesses. Pitcher Perfect, IIMB’s version of Shark Tank, where startups pitched their ideas in the sectors of healthcare and education to investors/VCs, saw a good number of budding entrepreneurs present their ideas.
Day One of Eximius was marked by performances from TAAL – the dance club of IIMB and Dhwani the – music club of IIMB. The day was wrapped up with performances from the Tapi Project and Kumar Varun.
The two-day entrepreneurship summit concluded with a closing ceremony featuring Accenture Ventures & Open Innovation Managing Director Avnish Sabharwal; NSRCEL Chief Operating Officer – Anand Sri Ganesh and Prof R Srinivasan. The event drew to a close on 10th July with a performance from Masala Coffee, the Indian music band.
