Hosted at IIM Bangalore, the 3day fest of ideas, competitions and panel discussions EXIMIUS 2015 has concluded. The event saw over 5000 participants from management schools across the country. From historian Ramachandra Guha to business leader Mahesh Murthy; from filmmaker Ketan Mehta to start-up stars Anjana Vivek and Rajiv Raghunandan, Eximius 2015 witnessed enthusiastic participation.
In his keynote address, Ramachandra Guha, historian and author of several books, including ‘India after Gandhi’, said: “A good start-up needs good leaders who complement each other, just like Nehru and Patel complemented each other.” He advised entrepreneurs to remain undeterred by what people say and continue to do what they believe in.
“Copy-paste always fails, so be innovative and original,” said Mahesh Murthy, venture capitalist, founder of Pinstorm and founding partner of Seedfund, who went on to emphasize the need to have a great product so delightful that it would turn every customer into a “brand ambassador”.
Founder-Director of VentureBean Consulting Anjana Vivek well-known consultant Rajiv Raghunandan led workshops on business planning and angel funding. Abhinav and Shreerang, from Oyo Rooms, shared their start-up experiences, emphasizing the need for entrepreneurs to set the right work culture in the organization and pay attention to detail.
Eximius had several quiz contests and the on-the-spot competitions Over 125 teams participated in Wipro Earthian’s sustainability challenge.
A panel discussion on MSME policies and entrepreneurship had participation from industry experts like AC Sahu (GM, SIDBI), Rajni Mishra (Chief GM, SBI) and Dr RS Deshpande (National Fellow, ICSSR). Dr Charan Singh, RBI Chair Professor of Economics, IIMB, moderated the panel.
Padma Bhushan awardee and renowned danseuse Alarmel Valli inaugurated the fest with a special address on the ‘Role of Creativity in Innovation and Entrepreneurship’. Drawing upon her myriad life experiences as an internationally acclaimed Bharatanatyam dancer, she spoke about the importance of practice, perseverance and patience in the creative process. Students later released sky lanterns to mark the beginning of the fest.
Special invitee Mukesh Bansal, Founder, Myntra, addressed the students and advocated a pragmatic approach to business ventures, especially in the nascent stage. “Get your team right at every stage of development if you want to scale up,” he advised.
His talk was followed up by a panel discussion on ‘Taking Initiative’ with the team of the film, ‘Manjhi – The Mountain Man’. The film’s director Ketan Mehta along the actors Nawazuddin Siddiqui and Radhika Apte discussed the real-life challenges faced by the subject of the film, Dashrath Manjhi. The director and the cast narrated anecdotes from their lives to emphasize how entrepreneurship was not just about the web based start-ups but about setting goals and achieving them despite the odds.
The evening also saw students thronging to ‘Catalysis’, a panel discussion on Housing and Real Estate, which brought together Founders and CXOs of companies like CommonFloor.com, Housing.com, IndiaProperty.com and Flatchat. Moderated by Professor R Srinivisan, Corporate Strategy and Policy area, IIMB, the discussion highlighted the different approaches taken by each of the four startups.
A variety of workshops were conducted during the three-day fest and they included those by CEOs Ankur Warikoo of Groupon and Arshdeep Sethi of RMZ Corp, who shared their experiences in starting up and sustaining business models. As many as 21 start-ups presented their ideas to potential customers and investors at a very popular event called ‘BootCamp’.
One of the top 3 business schools in India, IIM Bangalore is the only Indian B-school in GNAM list. IIM Bangalore has been accredited by EQUIS the international accreditation agency and is the first B-School in Asia to sign an agreement with Harvard Business Publishing (HBP) to distribute faculty teaching cases.
IIM Bangalore has produced leaders, entrepreneurs, social entrepreneurs, artists, writers , managers who collectively have a wealth of knowledge and experience. Some of the prominent alumni of IIM Bangalore include academicians such as Aswat Damodaran, Raghavendra Rau, Karan Bajaj, great author and film maker Nila Madhab Panda. K. Radhakrishnan, Chairman of ISRO and business executives like Ravi Subramanian and Sameer Suneja.
Stay tuned to MBAUniverse.com for more updates on IIM Bangalore
