YES 2020: The two day Entrepreneurship Summit of IIM Bodh Gaya comes to a close

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IIM Bodh Gaya hosted its maiden Entrepreneurship Summit, Youth Entrepreneurship Summit (YES 2020) on the 24th and 25th of January. The Event was organized by ‘Envision – The Entrepreneurship and Industrial relations cell’ of the institute in association with ‘Bihar Entrepreneurs Association (BEA)’. The title sponsor of the event was NABARD, along with other sponsors such as ‘Road Express- as the logistics partner’, ‘Mwash –as the care partner and other partners like LWT, Instade, 100 X, and Dare2Compete. The student fraternity of Indian Institute of Management, Bodh Gaya played a major role in successfully organizing the event.

‘YES 2020’ commenced with a plantation drive by the guests followed by ‘Lighting the lamp’ by Director of IIM Bodhgaya, Dr. Vinita Sahay. Post this an Inaugural Speech was given by her to welcome the guests, emphasizing on the culture of start-ups in India and the way ahead for entrepreneurship eco-system in Bihar as well as in India. Dr. Sahay added, “A place like Bihar is full of Entrepreneurial opportunities which should be used for the greater good by the upcoming generation of the country.” She also talked about how YES 2020 was an initial step towards the future endeavors that IIM BG envisions to take in the entrepreneurial sector. After this, the General Secretary of BEA gave an address speech that highlighted the role of organizations working at the root level of the startup ecosystem such as BEA.

The first day of the summit comprised a key-note session by Arijit Bhattacharya, CEO & Founder, Virtual Infocomm; a panel discussion between the panellists Arijit Bhattacharya, Ravi Ranjan, Founder & CEO, Starting Up with Ravi Ranjan, Gaurav Gupta, CMD, Mwash and Abhishek Kumar Gupta, Founder, Next Big Brand with Dr. Tanmoy Kundu, Assistant Professor, IIM Bodh Gaya as moderator. During the key-note session, Mr. Bhattacharya talked about the obstacles faced by budding entrepreneurs of the country and raised the question about what India lacked - money, innovation or something else?

The panellists of the first panel then took the stage. They deliberated on the topic “Beyond Venture Capitalists: Finding the Right Start-up and Funding Model”. The panel observed that venture capital is generally not the beginning or the end of a start-up’s journey, and hence, no one should start their own venture with the sole motive of getting funded.

The main attraction of ‘YES-2020’ was the Start-Up Hunt competition– a B-plan competition, with teams participating from various esteemed colleges from across the country. The total prize at stake was ₹ 2,60,000.

Team DIME from NIT Surathkal won the contest with prize money worth ₹1,10,000. The runners-up were Team Blisscare and Team Envirotech. Other participating startup teams included ‘Not Again’ from IIM Ranchi, Team HomeMade from IIM Bodhgaya, Team Varchaswa from Welingkar-Mumbai and Team Swasti from Pune. The ideas on the show were innovative and diverse from DIME’s solution of low-cost water purifier in rural and water-scarce regions to Envirotech’s business model of ‘Smart Dustbins’ and Blisscare’s Prototype of tablets for assisting the Blind. Many of these startups were established and generating revenue. The Director of IIM Bodhgaya and Dr. Dhirendra Kumar, General Manager of NABARD, felicitated the winners. 

The second day of the event kicked off with a keynote session by Dr. Pankaj Kumar, Head – Training knowledge and Capability Development, HRM at Tata Steel. This was followed by a panel discussion with Dr. Dhirendra Kumar – GM NABARD, Major Vandana Sharma -  Women Icon Asia Pacific, Ritu Kant Ojha - Author and Founder of WIYLD and Abhishek Kumar, the General Secretary of Bihar Entrepreneurs Association as panellists and Dr. Vinita Sahay as the moderator. Dr. Pankaj Kumar talked about Tata’s contribution to India’s emerging entrepreneurship ecosystem. He quoted Jamshedji Tata, saying, “In a free enterprise, the community is not just another stakeholder in business, but is, in fact, the very purpose of its existence”. The culminating event was ‘CEO of the Day’, an event exclusively for IIM students.

The final round of this event was a Boardroom style group discussion where the participants brainstormed on the case. The result was decided by the consensus of the participants acting as board members. After the voting of the board, ‘Somnath Sinha’ was declared the ‘CEO of the Day’. Rewards offered were flight tickets to ISET’20, Singapore and Instade coupons worth Rs. 5000.

YES 2020 event not only marked the first E-summit at IIM Bodh Gaya but also the most successful event on D2C platform by IIM Bodhgaya. The event concluded successfully with positive reviews from the guests, the participants as well as the students.