IIM-A director Sameer Barua spoke about the recent developments at the institution and expressed a desire to expand the institute’s global footprint further.

Prof. Sunil Maheshwari said the Centre for Innovation, Incubation and Entrepreneurship (CIIE) at IIM-A has so far churned out about 800 to 1000 entrepreneurs who are now successfully settled across the globe.

He said there are plans to set up these centres in small cities across the country and called for the alumni to come forward and help the institute in this regard.

Prof. Rakesh Basant said the Department of Information Technology has in collaboration with IIT-Kanpur, also decided to give a seat fund of Rs 1.5 crore to support IT based products. The ‘Ministry of New and Renewable Resources’ is to help CIIE create a ‘solar-energy technology’ fund and a 'clean-energy fund.'

Prof. Basant also highlighted CIIE’s efforts to synergise teaching and research, adding that energy and IT related innovation and healthcare are important areas of study for the institute.

Incidentally, IIM- A has also identified 22 technologies in a nation-wide search process to be supported and prototyped by the incubation centre.

These include technology for the vision-impaired, arsenic-free water, herbal processing technology for textiles, and motion picture technology to be used in Hollywood, among others. The meet was also marked by the launch of the book about inspiring stories of 25 IIM-A graduates, ‘Stay Hungry Stay Foolish,’ by entrepreneur and alumni Rashmi Bansal.

Entrepreneurship, the social way
Vijay Mahajan is one of the few IIM-A graduates who was steadfast in his belief of what he wanted to do with his life. Promoting the livelihood of the rural poor was always his topmost priority and today he has become a pioneer as far as the concept of 'social entrepreneurship' in India is concerned. He is now the chairman of ‘Basix,’ an NBFC (Non Banking Financial Corporation) that provides livelihood promotion services. A 1971 IIM-A alumni, he has carved a success story of engineering ‘social entrepreneurship’ when that concept was not even in existence here. Mahajan said he started with ‘Pradhan,’ an NGO in rural Bihar and MP, and worked for 10 years, but realised soon enough that change isn’t an easy process. “Pioneering can be quite problematic especially when you are trying to prove a new idea. At that point I realised that micro-finance is not enough of a support. I then tried to work out in a businesslike fashion,” said Mahajan. He said he then spent 3 to 4 years working as a self-employed consultant and then started off with ‘Basix.’ Now his organisation provides loans to the rural poor and has marketed the concept of micro-finance as well. But as he said, even ‘Basix’ wasn't doing well when he decided to go into a thorough evaluation and research process. Vijay believes the government hasn’t yet learnt how to work in collaboration and as such he prefers to work on his own. As of today, Basix has a reach across 15 states and works with a million households. By 2050, he plans to expand it to one crore poor household.

Entrepreneur’s NGO that promotes the culture of donating to the needy
Ever thought of donating and faced a problem locating the needy? Venkat Krishnan, an IIM-A graduate of the 1993 batch happened to meet too many of either category, but was pretty quick to make an entrepreneurship out of it.

His brainchild, GiveIndia, has ever since, been bridging the gap between the resourceful and the needy, while promoting the culture of ‘giving.’ Having worked in a news-daily, a television channel and as a principal of a school in Ahmedabad, Venkat thought of adopting the ‘connectivity’ issue as his mission.

As he says: “Although this has been on my mind for a long time but after interacting extensively with a few of my batch-mates who were looking out for avenues to reach out to the needy, I thought of creating a level playing field for the donors and the needy.”