A Seminar and Panel discussion was held on the topic ‘Opportunities and Challenges of Start-up’ at JIMS, Rohini on 27th Feb.’2018. The Speakers were Mr. Ravi Sood, CEO and founder, M/s Neeraj Industries and Gen.Secy. Badli Industrial Estate Association, Mr. Vivek Sidhu, MD and Co-founder, M/s Pencillati Studios Pvt.Ltd., Mr. Gaurav Prasad, Co-Founder & CTO, M/s Datacultr and Mr. Manik Mehta, Co-founder, Leaf Wearable. The session was moderated by Dr.Sumesh Raizada, Professor and E-cell coordinator. The participants were undergraduate and post graduate management students of JIMS, Rohini.
Initially the speakers shared their start-up journey with the students which was followed by a Q&A round. They told about the issues and challenges faced by the entrepreneurs and how do they overcame them. Students were also motivated to venture into start-ups as there are a lot of government schemes available in different sectors.
Mr. Sood is a Mechanical Engineer from Delhi College of Engineering. Before starting his own manufacturing unit in 1989, he worked in some of the reputed organizations including Bharat Heavy Electricals Limited, Escorts Limited, etc. He is an entrepreneur of the pre-liberalization period, when starting a new venture was rather difficult and startup environment was not as conducive as it is now. Still he managed to grow his company against all odds that too when he was not from the business family background.
Mr. Sidhu explained about Pencillati, which is a fast growing art production studio based out of New Delhi. Founded in 2013, it develops gaming and Animation products for foreign clients. Company focuses on creating high quality visual experiences through an efficient, customised workflow design. Within a short span of time, Pencillati has established itself well in the industry and for its short film.
Mr.Gurav who is an award winning Entrepreneur & Engineering Leader. He has over 18 years of experience in startups and fortune 100 companies. He has earlier been Principal Architect at Pitney Bowes, GM- product and platform at Reliance JiO, Director-product engineering at SAP, Founder and CTO of Alabot, an AI Startup, Project manager and automation specialist in HCL and GE respectively.
Mr.Manik who co-founded Leaf Wearables in 2015, explained that the company is a tech startup that designs smart jewellery products for women’s safety. The company’s products can be used to trigger an alarm and send signals to pre-identified phone numbers in case of emergency. One of its applications enables users to enter their start point and destination, in case they feel the route is unsafe. The location of the device can be tracked real time.
At the end, Vote of Thanks was given by Mr.Sanjive Saxena, Associate Professor, who along with Mr.Sunny Seth, Assistant Professor and student E-cell coordinators, mainly Kunal, Vivek, Aashi and Vikas organized the seminar.
Overall the session was interactive and students took away lots of key takeaways regarding Entrepreneurship.