The question - 'Do entrepreneurs need a college degree?' is quite relative and highly debatable. Many believe that entrepreneurship is all about taking risks and therefore, leaving school to become an entrepreneur is indeed one of them. But others argue that although education may not be a 'must have factor', it does equip entrepreneurs with the skills that can make them more effective.
We do have the examples of many successful billionaires like Dhirubhai Ambani, Bill Gates, Mark Zuckerberg, Richard Branson, Michael Dell, Walt Disney and Steve Jobs who considered 'willingness to take risk' rather than a collage degree as the basic parameter for being an entrepreneur. While a few of these great men are 'dropouts by situation', most of them are 'dropouts of choice'.
Peter Thiel, the Founder of PayPal, strongly believe that higher education doesn't prepare students to be successful entrepreneurs. In fact, he has offered 20 kids under 20 up to $100,000 to drop out of school to work on their business ideas. He believes that stepping out of school gives them a chance to put their formal educations on hold and they can continue it when it's convenient. He feels the modern-day higher education is more likely to cripple a young person with debt than it is to give them the freedom and the tools to pursue their big ideas.
The noted entrepreneur, academic, researcher, and writer Vivek Wadhwa has a different view about chasing the dream of entrepreneurship. He feel that to build a business, one need to understand subjects like finance, marketing, intellectual property and corporate law. He says although the initial idea is vital, but it is a debatable issue as to how far it can take you without proper educational backup.
The time spent at the college gives an opportunity to cross path with potentially thousands of people and the depth of knowledge increases. It is also true that a decent college degree will open better business opportunities. On the other hand, college is expensive and quite time consuming. There is no 100 percent pass out in colleges and many students take years to obtain their degrees. Moreover, for a young student who is an entrepreneur in heart, the courses offered in our traditional educational system are mostly irrelevant.
However, a handful of such success stories cannot deny the truth that there are countless dropouts who have failed. Many feel that the aforementioned men are by far the exceptions to the rule and that education is necessary to gain the skills needed to succeed and to build character. It is essential to have proper education, only which can provide the traits of decision-making and leadership that are vital to be an entrepreneur to the young minds. The old models of higher education should be redesigned in a way that education and entrepreneurship go hand-in-hand. And once at the point of decision making, just do what you feel is right, trust and stick on with your decision, and you can make a difference in the world.
As they say its never too late and especially when its about doing something productive and for the good. A new beginning of sorts for both myself and Innocentive, Me because I myself am pretty new to the concept of blogging and for Innocentive because this is really the first time that Innocentive is actually getting itself inducted into the WORLD WIDE WEB in the real sense..!!
Well its such an irony that just when I decided to start writing my mind on this medium it would actually also mark the beginning of a new era for Innocentive in this very medium..
Right from its inception in November 2007 till date Innocentive, the Entrepreneurship Cell of ISBR,Bangalore has only grown from strength to strength. Despite being the cell of a very infant institute Team Innocentive has proved time and again that we are no lesser than any other well established cell. Being the “National Champions” once and winning the “Championship Roll Of Honor” for the other two years for “E-Week- India” has only cemented the fact that Innocentive is a force to reckon with…
However in all of this there was always something missing….. So when the Innocentive think tank sat and started to brainstorm we felt that despite all the success that we had achieved we had not done enough to make ourselves known to the rest of the world. Thus we decided that it was high time that Innocentive found its right share of publicity in one of the most powerful medium of out times – THE INTERNET…So it all started with a very simple idea of creating a blog and also creating communities in popular social networking sites ……..However the hunger for something more which is so very common among the bright warriors of Team Innocentive led us to create that something more which took the shape of a website…!!!.....So Innocentive plunged into the big world of internet with a Blog , Social Networking communities and an exclusive Website under its belt…though much more work is left in the site and it is only in the basic stage…
So TADAAA…….!!!!
Ladies and Gentleman,
18th October,2010 – The day finally comes when Innocentive announces its arrival in the Internet . The official launching event had the presence of Mr. Sunil Sarangi ,NEN Consultant, Bangalore and Dr. K.S. Anandaram ,Director,ISBR Bangalore. The Blog and the Website was officially launched by Mr. Sunil in the presence of all the E-cell members and the junior PGDM batch of ISBR. A very proud moment for all the team member also came when our beloved Director sir lauded us for taking the initiative for starting something like this. His encouragement to do more good work certainly gave the team some more boost to done even better things.
Mr. Sunil also showered a lot of praises on. He was very excited and humbled to be invited for the event and one moment during his interaction which definitely brought a smile in everyone’s face was when he mentioned that many of the initiatives that we had started in our cell has not even taken place somewhere like IIM-B!!!!......A very big thing to say and I would again take this opportunity to thank Mr. Sunil who has always been a constant support for us from NEN’s side and I am sure he will provide us with the same sort of support in the future as well……
The occasion also gave us an opportunity to introduce the new members of Team Innocentive and Mr. Sunil was more than happy to meet and interact with them….. A proud moment for the senior team as well because some time later the baton would be passed onto them to carry the legacy of Innocentive forward…
So a great end to a great day for a great occasion….!!!
The job does not end here though……In fact it just got started.
There is a lot more in store in the days ahead ……..so till then keep your sights on this space…..
ENTREPRENEURSHIP cell, an ESTUARY for ELITES who ENDURE to ENDEAVOUR an ENIGMATIC EDIFICE under ISBR. The EMBERS are ready to EFFICACIOUSLY be ECCENTRIC under the ELMS of ISBR’s EMINANTS. EMULATING the ERUDITES EMPERICALLY being more EMPHATIC on ENGENDERING E-CELL in ISBR creating an EERIE for others without any EFFIGY, ELEGANTLY ELICITED and EXPOUNDING EBBULIENTLY without being EDDY, EXULTING on the EFFORTS by EXPEDIATING our very EMBELLISHED “INNOCENTIVE”.
ISBR’s E-CELL always tries something different. May it be writing or EXECUTING… creativity and the zeal of making different lies imbibed within us. We are thought twice to be
EQUIVOCAL…because…………
ENTREPRENEURS are different…
E-DEVELOPMENT CELLS are different…
Our INNOCENTIVE is different…
& we are different…
& going for a different approach is risky and worth challenging…WE DO!!!!!
Entrepreneurs make some innovations followed by the caliber to take an initiative for it to get implemented. This very belief and the reason why twenty five founding members under the able guidance and mentorship of Prof. Amit Gupta ,Director (ISBR) with Yashpal Doshi and Sugandha Singh decided to name this new born E-development cell in ISBR as “INNOCENTIVE”.
E-CELL “INNOCENTIVE” took birth on 23rd Nov 2007 instituting a formal inauguration in ISBR (bangalore) under the auspice of NATIONAL ENTREPRENEURSHIP NETWORK (NEN).Gracing the occasion many dignitaries like Prof. Panduranga Rao(director XIME.bangalore), Mr. Sameer Kanth(NEN coordinator of Karnataka), MrSuhashGopinath(CEO Global Inc), world youngest CEO Mr. Manish Kothari(ISBR), Mr. Prakash Kothari(chairman ISBR)& Mr. Amit Gupta (former director ISBR) decorated the dais.
Soon team “INNOCENTIVE” came out with Aids Awareness Programme on 1st december2007 keeping both the earning part and the social responsibility in mind thereby steering it to a great start.
E-WEEK Industry and academia (theme-2008) Then in the month of February, 2008 ISBR witnessed a mega event of E-WEEK facing all kinds of hurdles and challenges that stood in front as great walls of china under the coordinator ship of Mr. Yashpal Doshi with a motive of trying to enroll “INNOCENTIVE” in the list of ROLL OF HONOUR by NEN. Learning was tremendous in just a week. Patience, passion, persistence and perseverance are all that define entrepreneurship and it all was tested again and again in all those who worked for it. Various events like corporate walk, branding, group discussions, mad add show, elocution, case study presentations, mind mapping, and fun events like, Chinese whisper, 3 hint games, etc, were conducted. This triggered a positive change in the lives it touched. ISBR, Bangalore in its first year participated in this nationwide programme and won the Roll of Honor among the 275 odd colleges which participated in the event.
Mr. Yashpal Doshi and Ms. Sugandha Singh the coordinators of the very 1st E-CELL team have been given the membership of the NEN Alumni Club. “INNOCENTIVE” has some very distinguished personalities as its Advisory Board Members. They are:-
·Mr. Phanindra Sama (Founder & CEO,RedBus.in)
·Mr. Suhas Gopinath (CEO,GlobusInc)
·Mr. Nikesh Shah (Alacron India Pvt Ltd)
·Mr. Gopal Bengeri (Tastebuds)
·Ms. Priyanka (Co-founder,Hungryzone.com)
·Mr. Neeraj Harlaka (CEO,Store.in)
·Mr. Karthik K.S. (CEO,24x7 learning)
·Mr. Manish Kothari (Managing Trustee, ISBR)
·Prof. Amit Gupta (Former Director, ISBR)
Since the Inception of our E-CELL we went forward in search of excellence of true entrepreneurial spirit. With the advent of a new day stars being the torch bearer paved the way to the new morning making Ms. Soumya Satpathy and Mr. Denzil Varghese hold the legacy and shone bright before meeting the dawn from 2008-10. Holding the post of coordinators leading a team of 23 students again created new milestones like organizing an opportunity evaluation workshop that innovated their marketing skills in front of other students and also the stalwarts like Mr. Azgar Khan (NEN consultant), Mr. Sameer Kanth (NEN consultant) and Mr. Vinod Shashtri (NEN Evangelist).
No doubt positive ideas are to come, but thinking negative or bad ideas might not be less challenging, especially if one has to sell the same…this thought carried the event of IDEA GENERATION WORKSHOP conducted by Mr. Vinod and Mr. Sameer Kanth. This really has brought the best among the individuals and teams.
The TATA NEN hottest startups the First ever ‘Public Choice Awards’ to recognize India’s young, dynamic, enterprising and innovative entrepreneurs started its journey from the ISBR campus. The Awards are a unique collaboration between the Tata Group, India’s most respected business conglomerate and NEN, the largest representatives of new and future entrepreneurs in India. The Awards aim to showcase and recognize high potential young companies in India, with the goal to attract visibility for over 800 entrepreneurs & their ventures in India and engage over 500000 people.
GO GREEN….2009 E-WEEK’s theme. Yet another level of the step to success after attaining the 2008s roll of honor was a head banging time for the team members to set another bench mark by winning the CHAMPIONSHIP AWARD. An impressive and diverse range of events covering renewable energy sources, alternate energy solutions, clean technologies, carbon emissions and trading, global warming, and the whole panorama of going green. This again instigated this spirit of entrepreneurship within the campus.
Then in 2010 the torch bearer legacy got passed to the flocks of new born birds aspiring to fly selecting the coordinators to be Mr. Syed Shadab and Mr. Kushal Chakraborty. In the phase of learning to fly these new born brought another role of honor adding to the credits of high collared ISBR. Venturing into the activities like publishing real booklet real Bangalore, waste o mart, rain water harvesting, etc, under the mentorship of Ms. Soumya Satapathy and Mr. Denzil Varghese.
E WEEK 2010 - INDIA OPPORTUNITES WITHIN- Following the marathon chasing the achievers in order to win fame, Innocentive set sail for yet another challenging voyage in the mid of February 2010. Despite obstacles like limited funds, lack of student participation hitting the Innocentive crew like massive waves we managed to pull of the weeklong event quite efficiently to say the least. With many prominent guests like Suhas Gopinath , Joshua Rozario, Sabyasachi Bannerjee,and many more gracing the occasion we had a mix of highly intellectual events like panel discussion on India’s future in INDIA 20:20, Entrepreneurial experiences in Total Recall, Points on being a successful entrepreneur in Turning Point , Business Plan events like approaching a VC as well as fun filled activities like skits, treasure hunt, and many, This occasion also helped us to organize certain activities which was directed towards the welfare of the society as a whole. Whether it is creating basic traffic awareness in the form of Traffic Campaign, Doing street plays in schools with the theme of instilling the values of education in tender minds and skits for working employees to help them get out of work stress in a lighter way.
The hard work of the team as well as the participants did reap some fruit in the end when the college was bestowed with the “Roll of Honor”. This was however not a very fulfilling result for the team considering the fact that we were champions in the previous E-week. But a significant achievement still because it was a hat trick of wins for ISBR , an infant institute compared to many other stalwart institutes in the ranks.
Now the trendsetters are setting the goals and expectations before the upcoming generations is very high. With many new challenges and hurdles cropping up day by day, the leaders’ and guides of the ship are clearing all the hurdles of problems and guiding them like the gardener, nurturing the shrubs to achieve the next milestone…
