Overview

Mr Sunil Handa

Workshop started very well with Mr Sunil Handa as the first speaker. His lecture not only captivated the spirits of the audiences but also entertained us with timely jokes.

He started with a real life story about one of his student Narendra at IIM-A. He talked at length about the hurdles he faced in his way to become a successful entrepreneur (today he is holding a 1700 crore business).His emphasis on being an entrepreneur is visible from his saying “ Push yourself from inside ,Be cruel to yourself ‘

He told his life story and about his upbringing and it was really surprising to know that his father was a low paid worker in a textile mill. He recalled how he used to share even the old clothes of his brother in the childhood and then he reminded his BITS story.

He appreciated BITS for the role it played in shaping his life .After passing out from IIM-A he just preferred to work for a small company though he was getting placement offers from big companies. He left the company job in 21 months just to start up his own venture where he started with a management consultancy and later on , started a pharmaceutical manufacturing industry which became largest manufacturer of IV fluids in the second year of its operation and went on to become third largest in the world today.

He emphasized on the fact that the cream of brilliant minds who reach BITS after a grueling BITSAT should not be contented with a job whatever be the pay package. That’s why he motivated everyone to be an entrepreneur. In his opinion: 
“Put your Fears aside and be Brave and Adventurous to be an EntrepreneuR.”

Many questions were asked from the audience like what is the difference between taking risk or a calculated risk making it an interactive session. Audience was content with the answers they got for the queries that arised in their minds. He quoted a beautiful thought that “Human beings are infinite.If we get something we like ,we never get tired of it ”. In short explore your ideas and stick to them .According to him business is a spiritual khoj, and his message to students was “Don’t do jobs , do business “ Don’t be an employee ,be an employer …be a HERO”

Then he told about the steps he has taken in bringing reforms in the Democratic system as a member of ADR ( Association for Democratic Reforms) and how he helped afflicted people in Gujrat earthquake by setting up a school.

In the end he emphasized that every person along with job or business can use his skills of organizing, engineering and negotiation to help and serve the society to make this earth a better place to live.

Mr Kavikrut

Kavikrut ,an eminent speaker and founder of the Mobile Medics began with an interesting question: What is important for a social entrepreneur- Impact or the Money. Then he drew a clear cut demarcation between the two. He elaborated about the idea he had , its implementation and difficulties he faced so as to motivate the students to become a social entrepreneur and give them real issues which a social entrepreneur faces. In short he provided audience with a REALITY CHECK because its well said All that glitters is not gold. After all this he discussed different models like Charity, EMRI model and Optimized/Maximized profits.

He started with the challenges which his team faced for their venture Mobile Medics. He emphasized on problems one faces while starting a venture in rural India like Trust building or Working conditions .The next hurdle in his opinion is finding like minded people in a team who are just focused for one thing. For all the challenges, he refers solution to be Patience and Persistence. He discussed how he actually implemented his idea, the money he started with was all the prize money (USD 35,000) and how he got an immense support from BITS Incubation Centre.

He kept up the inquisitiveness of the audience by telling them how he went about implementing his idea and what made the execution of his ideas difficult. The major difficulty was Unavailability of medical team, doctors were not available or they denied working in the harsh conditions. For this problem, he proposed a Practice school kind of a thing for doctors. Second were the legal issues he faced while the most important was Problem of Self Motivation.

He stressed that for implementing any business ,GET REAL ,do the reality checks from time to time just to check the sustainability and the feasibility of your idea.

He shared the lessons which he has learnt from his failed venture. One of those was that Trust building is important while other thing required is Tangible pricing .He defined entrepreneurship as “State of being an Entrepreneur”. He said “A team is required to bear the risk and the most important, an entrepreneur should be ready to bear of volatility of any kind in his path.”

At the end he concluded saying “Dive but make sure that water is deep enough”

Mr V K Desai

V K Desai started his impressive lecture by hitting at the big companies saying that technology is used nowadays as a tool of mass destruction.

He emphasized the need of setting up of small scale industries in villages to make them sustainable. According to him the basic necessities of life should be accessible to common man, if this can be achieved then only proper development of country is possible, otherwise it would remain as a distant dream. He substantiated his point of view by giving various examples like setting up of cotton mill in the villages can help in fulfilling the needs of local villagers. Big companies what they are doing is they collect raw material at one place and start manufacturing in big factory. According to him this is not a very viable model . instead we can set up small cotton mills in many villages as it can a save a lot of energy and time . He gave very good example that cotton which is grown in Assam is transported to Ahmadabad to manufacture clothes. So why not make cotton mills in Assam itself and start production there only.

He reiterated that if we want our rural India to develop then instead of raw materials we should export value added products from villages that will help in upliftment of rural economy and can help in bridging the gap between the rural and urban development.

He shared his experience of being in 72 countries for setting up of small oil mills and said that small oil mill is more viable option than setting up of big ones. He said “complicated machinery make simple things complicated “so use simple technology to grow and he said “small is profitable “

He stressed on the decentralization of rice mills so that rice can be made available to local people at a fair price.

He discussed many areas where there is a potential for development like usage of solar heaters, solar cookers, trapping of hydro power, all can be exploited for benefit of rural sector.