Entrepreneurship Cell:

Entrepreneurship Cell (E-Cell) is a student body which has been working under guidance of Prof. Dhrubes Biswas, IIT Kharagpur and Prof. Partha Pratim Chakrabarti, DEAN (SRIC), IIT Kharagpur.  (Details on www.ecell.iitkgp.ernet.in)

COURSEWARE FOR UG AND MBA

Prof. Biswas is in the third year of teaching two entrepreneurship courses in 2008, which has formed one of the basics of IDEATION for entrepreneurship in IIT. 

• Engineering Entrepreneurship, an elective course for pre-final and final year B. Tech students and numbering close to 250 students
• Creating and Managing New Ventures, a compulsory course for MBA students consisting of 150 students. This clinical course is at advanced level and DB has created 6 entrepreneurial case studies for worldwide entrepreneurship courses ranging from Jyvaskala and extending up to Colorado Univ.

ONGOING TRAINING PROGRAM

Technology Entrepreneur Development Program (TEDP)

The TEDP program has been reengineered for grass root entrepreneurship relevant to semi urban and rural poor people. In January of this year after careful evaluation we had selected 30 students to participate in EDP Programs that was held in Feb-Mar, 07. The teaching was the combination of leadership & business enterprise. This had inspired such an experimental curriculum inspired the entrepreneurial minds and they were motivated to form a co-operative entrepreneurship name “E-Turns”.  This time we have scaled up our TEDP to conduct 4 such programs for the grassroots entrepreneurs. We have already received a sum of 6.4 lakhs as advance from the DST.
The TEDP course conducted by IIT-KGP is unique in many ways. It has bee getting continues attention since its very inception. Now in its 3’rd generation of its running, it has evolved into a powerful tool to create tangible and intangible benefits for the society.  Our efforts to create such a course for the grassroots entrepreneurs arises out of the need to create sustainable growth opportunities for the people in the semi-urban and rural sectors of the society other than the urban areas.

• BUSINESS IN SEMI-URBAN & RURAL EDUCATION

(Link)à Course content:

• GREEN TECHNOLOGIES & RELATED ENVIRONMENTAL BUSINESS

(link)à Course content:

Appropriate technologies from the knowledge domains will be identified Following a selection process based on prior skills and future intent, the prospective entrepreneur will be taken through a rigorous mentoring based clinical training on the expected entrepreneurial business processes:-

• Health Care service

(link)à Course content:
Appropriate technologies from the knowledge domains will be identified Following a selection process based on prior skills and future intent, the prospective entrepreneur will be taken through a rigorous mentoring based clinical training on the expected entrepreneurial business processes:-
   

• BUSINESS IN POWER & FUEL MANAGEMENT WITH RELEVANT CONSERVATION

(link)à
Appropriate technologies from the knowledge domains will be identified Following a selection process based on prior skills and future intent, the prospective entrepreneur will be taken through a rigorous mentoring based clinical training on the expected entrepreneurial business processes:-

Faculty Development Program

We have been funded a two weeks’ program positioned towards training faculties from other engineering colleges in the local area including IIT Kharagpur and it was accepted by Department of Science &Technology. Faculties from various places such as Jharkhand, West Bengal, Orissa and Assam had come to participate in the program.

The FDP will help to bring the entrepreneurship and enterprising culture to the class room by positioning IIT Kharagpur as an appropriate delivery mechanism of DST initiatives for nurturing an ecosystem of entrepreneurship resource persons around institutions of higher learning.
The main purpose of conducting the FDP at IIT-KGP is to facilitate the creation of an entrepreneurship resource & infrastructure set-up at various Universities with the assistance of “change agents” trained at IIT-KGP who helps to proliferate to their respective areas.

A lamp can never light another lamp unless it continues to burn its own flame. By conducting the FDP we seek to start the process of lighting up a thousand lamps as training the faculties will evidently help us transfer the knowledge to their mentor in their concerned institution in a satisfactory manner.

Objective of FDP

• The objective of this programme is to familiarize participants with
• Entrepreneurship
• Highlighting its advantages, difficulties and appropriateness for the development of entrepreneurial culture.
• This module concentrates on leading case discussions, in the same way as would be studied in a conventional business management program. It also focuses on various methodological approaches, performance and the importance of continuous learning.
• It is designed to train and develop professionals in entrepreneurship development so that they can act as resource persons in guiding and motivating young students to take up entrepreneurship as their career.
• Innovation being a key constituent of entrepreneurship will be dealt with in a. pro-active manner.

The training provided to the incoming faculties  included a diverse range of issues which was discussed amidst a conducive environment of STEP which itself is known for providing various facilities including wet and dry incubation to the incoming incubatee. The major content of the course included-
The course content has been divided into 2 basic modules.

Module 1(5 days)

• Motivation & Leadership training
• Business development for development of infrastructure for entrepreneurs.
• Ideation
• Incubation
• Outputs (e.g. Tech park linkages)
• Live Projects with well defined outputs

                                               
Module 2 (5 days)     
                                                           

• Develop Networks for the Entrepreneurial activities and local challenges
• Creation of educational resources
• Identification of growth opportunities in entrepreneurial development at respective institutes.
• Site Tours to Wet Incubator
• Creation of educational resources
• Developing a Capstone Project

Figure : Faculty Development program held at IIT Kharagpur Feb 2008

LINK - DST

OUTREACH PROGRAMS

Technopreneur Promotion Program (TePP):

Technopreneur Promotion Program (Innovation Funding program of DSIR and TIFAC, Govt. of India) Coordinator, Prof. Biswas has been able to motivate a lot of grass-root innovators into getting their ideas into practice. TePP supports marginal as well as matured Innovators, who would otherwise have no chance of seeing success, had the Government not come up to there assistance. IIT KGP is the Outreach center for the TEPP and is assisting a number of entrepreneurs to avail of Innovation based funding in the form of grants. (link –DSIR website to TEPP)
For more info regarding TEPP related funding at IIT-KGP Outreach center ,contact –Punit  Saurabh  (09734425758) 

Link DSIR

Innovation Awareness Camps

Three Innovation Awareness camps were organized by PI, Prof. Dhrubes Biswas, in the regions of Midnapur, Orissa and North Bengal in the first stage of the camp following which Orissa was subsequently chosen for the second stage of the IAC with an aim to start an all-inclusive movement of spreading innovation and entrepreneurial culture in the country. The third round of IAC camp held in the northern region of West Bengal was a brave effort by  Prof. Biswas and his team of Researchers which saw him touring a stretch of more than 2500 km within a short period of 4 days and culminating at Kharagpur was recognized with admiration and overwhelming reception wherever the touring party ventured.

We have successfully organized three Innovation Awareness Camps at:

• Medinipur

Date: Mar 09, 2007
Venue: Road Show

• Orissa

Date: Jan 23, 2008
Venue:

• IIT Bhubaneshwar Ext Centre
• KIIT, Bhubaneshwar
• Royal College
• North Bengal

Date: Apr 04, 2008
Venue:

• Durgapur (Road Show)
• Jalpaiguri Govt. Engineering College
• Jalpaiguri Polytechnic College
• Siliguri Institute of technology

The objective of IAC was to:

1. Promote entrepreneurial culture in the state of West Bengal
2. Spread the entrepreneurial culture around the state of West Bengal, Orissa, Jharkhand, Bihar and the North Eastern Regions of India.
3. Create all-inclusive innovation awareness in the minds of people
4. Motivate people to dare to implement their ideas into reality and become successful entrepreneurs

• Create an Education-Enterprise based model for entrepreneurship
• Promote Technology based free enterprises.

Though India is home to many good Science and Engineering colleges, known as breeding ground of innovation, it is unfortunate that there are very few people who know about how to get through the intricacies of conducting a business venture. IAC had been conceptualized in order to motivate people to take up entrepreneurial activities in a manner with the hope of creating an entrepreneurial society in the entire eastern region of India.

Figure-: The selection criteria for venue of IAC
DSIR acts as a support for the less opportune S & T students through the established institutions like IIT KGP for spreading the innovation awareness and the promotion of grants which would help them support the innovation.

Figure : The IIT KGP as a facilitator of DSIR through IAC to common people

Link – DSIR

INTERNATIONAL COLLOBORATIONS

IIT-KGP under the guidance of Prof.Dhrubes Biswas has put a lot of emphasis on collaborating with foreign and top notch institutions to facilitate knowledge interchange on the subjects of mutual interests on entrepreneurship and incubation related activities at IIT-KGP. We have had some successful high profile visitors and have also had the pleasure to make counter visits at some of the learning institutions around the world on topics like social entrepreneurship, networking and venturing while putting lot of efforts on creating an entrepreneurial ecosystem with domestic institutions like NISTADS.We have had the privilege to ineract with Dr. Dipankar Chakravarty and Dr. Ikhlaq Sidhu from colarado and Berkeley University respectively. Prof. Biswas has also made counter visits to these institutions and had a mutual exchange of ideas, this summer, 2008.