The ninth edition of Eximius, National entrepreneurship summit of IIM Bangalore, that celebrates the spirit of entrepreneurship came to life on the 5th of august. The tagline for this edition was – The Time is Now. Eximius 2016 was inaugurated with a keynote address from the man behind many of India’s best-selling books linking management and mythology – Dr. Devdutt Patnaik. He used the example of a blade of grass to motivate the emerging start-ups and entrepreneurs. When we pluck grass from the ground, its roots are still entrenched in the soil. The grass survives. He urged the audience to find opportunities and not be afraid of threats. He egged them to fight back when pulled down by threats.
Day 1
IBM & Kstart Fast Forward (Finals)
One of the five flagship events of Eximius, Fast Forward, is a competition that provides emerging entrepreneurs to pitch their business ideas to experts and make it big. The event was organized in three stages and ten teams were selected for the last leg. The jury consisted of Mr. A B Vijay Kumar, IBM Distinguished Engineer and CTO of CIC MobileFirst iOS Garage and Mr. Muthiah Venkateswaran, Partner, Kstart, a seed initiative by Kalaari Capital. The ideas that were pitched varied from the online shopping of customized fashion products to smart home solutions to new integrated messaging services. IBM Bluemix, a cloud platform as a service (PaaS), was at the heart of the business ideas. The team that won the event was MIKE messenger. This idea pitched by the team revolved around disrupting the way people interact over the messaging services available at present. The team behind this innovative application is – Ravina Mutha, Sandeep Jayasankar, Mehul Sharma and Pranay Jain. Team Bevesto from IITDM Jabalpur came second, and team Amogue was placed third.
Inshorts Game of Clicks (Finals)
Game of clicks is a digital marketing event. There were six finalists who had to develop and implement a digital marketing strategy for a start-up assigned to them and report the results. The event was judged by Sejal Poladia who comes with 12.5 years of experience in Digital and Traditional Marketing. Team SLR (Ravi Kumar and Siddharth Jain) from IIMB came first, and Team ASK US also from IIMB came second.
Sim Venture (Round 1)
The first round of Sim Venture, an operations simulation game conducted by the operations club of IIM Bangalore witnessed a participation of 75 teams from across a variety of colleges such as IIM Bangalore, IIM Vishakapattnam and Christ University. The first round was a quiz on concepts of operation management and supply chain. The top 20 teams selected from the first round will proceed to the next round which will consist of a simulation game testing the participants on their ability to run a factory and handle the varying demands.
Keynote Speaker – Ketto
Founded by Mr. Varun Seth and renowned actor Mr. Kunal Kapoor, Ketto, “Key to Tomorrow”, is Asia’s most visited crowdfunding platform with the largest funding community. They said the internet should be used for the greater good, and that internet brings everyone together. Kunal stressed that the most important thing is to believe in your idea and investors will follow. Varun said that Ketto measures success in two ways – the lives they impact and how they can be self-sustainable.
Bliteratti
The Bliteratti event conducted by the Lits and Debating club of IIM B had a splendid turnout of more than 50 teams. With unconvential rounds like the archaic rap, What’s in a name, homonyms and a literary version of the Dumb C the finals was a real nailbiter. Rupsa Dasgupta and Digvijay Singh Parmar, PGP2 students from IIM B eventually finished as the winners.
Drams Night
As the sun set, the day took an interesting turn as business met a packed theatre. The Dramatics Club of IIM Bangalore performed two plays – ‘Murder at the Banquet’ (English) and ‘Ulta Pulta’ (Hindi). The young act-preneurs brought to life a variety of characters with their vivid portrayals of surreal human emotions.
Disruptive Marketeers
A two-stage event where the participants had to devise a CSR strategy for an Indian FMCG brand. The strategy had to foster micro-entrepreneurs while creating value & benefits for the organization. Some of the strategies that were proposed by the finalists dealt with helping chaiwalas, vegetable vendors, house-wives, dabbawallas and construction workers among others. The winning team wasTeam Vzards from IIM Visakapattinam consisting of Dipanjan Hore, Manish Ghosal, Mayank Maria and Rajesh Bhol. Team Spartacus from SPJain, Mumbai consisting of Akash Jain, Nandakumar K and Neha Agrawal came second.
Keynote Speaker – Piyush Mishra
As the curtains were drawn to a close, they were quickly reopened to present renowned theater veteran, lyricist, singer and movie actor Mr. Piyush Mishra, who raptured the audience with his mesmerizing singing and poetry prompting the audience to cry “Encore”!