The theme for E Week 2018 was “Live your Entrepreneurial Dream “. At Dr. MGR Educational and Research Institute (Deemed to be University) E week was celebrated across the Maduravoyal and Adayalampattu Campuses, among the seniors from the Faculty of Engineering & Technology, Faculty of Architecture and Faculty of Dental Surgery and by the first year Engineering students. These entrepreneurial students worked on the subthemes – Break Barriers! Create Wealth! and Change India! More than 15 events were conducted and around 4000 aspiring student entrepreneurs participated in the ordained programs.
E Week 2018 @ MGR
The Planning Phase
The 10th edition of Entrepreneurial celebration initiated with the E – Week Launch Webinar on ‘Set the tone’ on 8th January 2018. Followed by, the E cell office bearers brainstormed on hosting an innovative workshop for a week such as business simulation exercises, pitch camp, live project building. Thoughtful, fun-filled events were also included namely Can you Sell ? What’s Next ? Khelo MGR. Especially, an inspiring event called 24 hour nonstop tech was also proposed.
Promotional Activities and Marketing
The E week promotional activities and marketing strategy, started with a tangible plan of action with the leadership of Dr. Rama Vaidyanathan. Creative posters, peppy videos and attractive banners were made. The flyers and E week information sheet were sent to all WhatsApp groups among the student population. Arizon E Cell office situated at VOC118, catered convenient space for discussion to execute the events plan, and a spot to clarify doubts for aspiring students on the E week matters. Arizon E Cell members began the promotional activities by taking E Week Pledge. Mr. Madhesh translated the pledge into Tamil (the regional language). Extended advertisement commenced with face painting and street dancing at the University Basket Ball Court. As along five student bikers took the E week Banner in and around the University premises to inspire the entrepreneurial interest of the wider student audience.
10th February 2018
E week was inaugurated by Mrs. Linda Doshi, Director – Schaffer Industries, U.S.A. Ms. Doshi spoke on enterprise professionalism, cash flow management, risk taking and how to get up and raise for a stronger stand. She also highlighted on the aspects of trustworthy employment. Followed by, the alumni Mr. Suman Kumar Jha, CEO Giscle Systems was honored as E Leader. He received the award from the hands of Dr. Rama Vaidyanathan, Director, Dr.APJCoE, who originally established the E cell at the University. Receiving the epitome award Mr. Suman Kumar Jha recorded his gratitude with an inspiring talk on the journey of living the entrepreneurial dream.
For the forenoon session Dr. Rama Vaidyanathan conducted a crash course on Innovative Thinking for a group of 40 students. The importance of empathizing with people to face problem was defined and to ideate and interpret the problem in the right sense. Dr. Vaidyanathan shed lights on Learn to ask why ? Connect and Combine, Challenge Assumptions. The design thinking methodology for prototype was also explained clearly.
11th February 2018
Sunday was the gap day to get geared to finetune the final preparatory work for the week full of E climate. The E members uploaded pictures in the Arizon Facebook page. The Business Simulation Organization Team got together to rehearse. Digital promotion of internet bandwidth at the campus took E week measures off to the cloud.
Day 3 – Business Simulation
12th February 2018
Lead by Dr. J. Arun Kumar, with team members Aakash, Tharun and Daniel organized the Simulation Game. There was a record of 76 participants. Each team worked to produce paper ships and worked on Pollution Control Board and ISO Certification. The pollution control board went around with a Noise Detection Kit and any team which made more than 70 decibel sound was fined! The game also simulated demonetization drive in Banking and all Rs.100 had to be returned. The participants almost stampede at the Bank, and it had so much of fun making the event a hit.
Khelo MGR started by forenoon and 60 girls participated in the event. Health instructor for fitness from Pink Gym taught the girls certain warm up exercises. Per se Mr. Madhesh organized 4 stations of activities, and the team that complete the task in shortest time was the winner. Excitement was in the air when the girls ran around and completed the tasks.
13th February 2018
The pitch camp was aimed to gather ideas and products that can be commercialized in the near future. Podium presentation of students on technology and selfsustained products created an entrepreneurial mind for the students as they finish their academic career. Dr. Hepsibah Sharmil S gave the overview on the event rules to be followed. A trail run of presentation was judged by Dr. Pritikha. U, Dr. Reena Das and Dr. Hepsibah Sharmil. The final session of pitch camp started with a lecture on analysing the false positive data and misleading graphs by Dr. Venil Sumantran, Adjunct Professor IIT. Students pitched their project ideas with a minimum of three crisp slides and was evaluated by the expert panel of Judges consisted of Prof. Rama Vaidyanathan, Prof. Venil Sumantran, Prof. Vijayakumar, Department of Mechanical Engineering and Prof. Narayanan, Deptarment of Civil engineering. Total of 27 student teams participated in the Pitch Camp competition and each team comprised of 3-4 members. Judges shortlisted 17 teams for the final presentation. The judges gave their feedback and the students gained functional insights on their project plan. Mr. Gokulakrishnan, an incubatee from NewGen IEDC project explained the tips and ideas to make an effective podium presentation.
The final pitch was conducted in the afternoon, the nominated 17 team members presented their project ideas with the inputs given by the Judges. Judges for the final round of presentations were Prof. Mukesh Doble, Professor, Department of Biotechnology IIT, Dr. Venil Sumantran, Adjunct Professor IIT, Dr. Rama Vaidyanathan Director (R&D) and Prof. Ethiraj, Professor Department of Mechanical Engineering. They critically reviewed the presentation and gave valuable comments. 8 teams were selected from the final run, these eight projects were further nominated for to appear for NewGen IEDC project funding. Pertinent mentors were also suggested to be given for these student to develop their ideas better and implementable. So, there were 8 winners from the Pitch camp spanning all the Engineering Departments.
The day ended with a food stall from Catering Technology Students. One of the project incubate from the NewGen IEDC showcased a stall on Millet based foods. They officially launched their company named Sunrise Foods on 13th February 2018. The Proprietors were three students from B.Sc. Catering and Technology Suriya, Tanveer and Gowtham. The Cookies, Sponge Cake and fruity millet drink was displayed and it drew the crowd like ants to honey, it was a lip-smacking food.
Day 4 – Can you Sell ?
14th February 2018
Marketing is the most important segment as of a business. To cultivate and test marketing skills among students, Can You Sell? event was conducted. Ms. Bhuvaneshwari along with Mr. Madhesh, John, Sonam and Gokulakrishna coordinated this event. 30 students participated in pairs. The event started with a warmup. Three minutes was given to write all the States of India excluding the Union territories. Few minutes of preparatory time was given to seller their products by convincing Madhesh and Gokulakrishnan to buy. Enthusiasm was shown by all the teams to sell the products they picked. To name few, products like pink lipstick worth of Rs 750 was sold, pair of high heels was worth Rs 2000. Typewriter worth of Rs 5000. Mortar and pestle, a mart kitchen tool and so on and so forth.
Mithil, Pankaj and Pavan conducted the event What’s next?. In this event the participants were given the liberty to choose an issue that they wanted to solve. All participants came up with the real life problems and solutions accordingly.
Day 5 – Tech on, Technical Hackathon
15th February 2018
On 15th morning the student participants gathered at the Dr. Abdul Kalam CoE for the Tech-On. For the first time at the University, this was a 24 hour non-stop event that was conducted. The event started with a pleasant surprise from the participants who came forward to enroll before time. The day started with a healthy breakfast and the 24 hour non-stop technical hackathon was inaugurated by Dr. Rama Vaidyanathan. The participants were advised to get self-introduced among each other. The working kits were distributed and eleven working groups were identified and allotted private working space. Parallel sessions of Tech Shop and 3 D Printing workshop was also conducted. The Technical Hackathon program was jointly visited by the Wadhwani Foundation representatives Mrs. Vishnu Priya and Ms. Bhoomika. They were informed about all the efforts and contributions of Arizon Entrepreneurship Cell for the E-WEEK 2018.
The students presented their ideas and solutions to the chosen problem area to Mr. Shyam Shekhar, Startup Mentor. Mr. Shekhar gave a talk on who is an entrepreneur? and how he works? The participants were asked to make a Minimum Viable Project (MVP) of the proposed solution. Mr. Madhesh and Mr. Dhilip where the runners who helped participants to get the materials that was required for their prototype. To work for the full day, with nonstop day and night work, to get the student participants motivated and be energized a Karaoke was organize at the dawn. The coordinators such as Dr. Rama Vaidyanathan, Ms. Bhuvi, Ms. Mathi and Dr. Mahesh were all present overnight with the student participants.
Working prototype was successfully made overnight and it was ready for the early morning display in the classroom. The team techie-triangle made an app called I See You to digitize India replacing the written method of writing prescriptions in hospitals with the app.
The team from Mechanical department made a smart garbage system which notifies the MCD if it overflows. They also created a suitcase alarm, that will intimate if the baggage weight more than 15 kgs.
A team called Furious 4 inspired by the F&F designed a car which will stop when it comes across any obstacle. The team independently worked on creating their product without the help of the mentors. Their moving spirit proved their hands-on application of the product by self-manufacture.
The team from MCA department came with a solution to break the WiFi password by the process of ethical hacking. The system can recover and obtain data that are hard to be collected.
Another team came up with a solution to lift the child from accidental fall from the deep pit. They used ultrasonic sensors and ropes with a mechanism of Oxygen in suit to lift the fallen child no matter how much deep the pit is.
It was astounding to witness Techon participants who sustained the entire night and were determined to come up with the MVP.
Day 6 – The Valediction
16th February 2018
Mr. K. Vaidyanathan, Director and Founder of APA Engineering Pvt. Ltd. was the Chief Guest who regaled his Entrepreneurial Story. He described the Entrepreneurial Dream that drove his life. He also highlighter the changing definition of Entrepreneurship that kept-on changing with every stage of life, listening to the entrepreneurial journey the listening audience intrigued. The valedictory session was held at the Conference hall, University Campus.
Dr. Arun Kumar presented the report on E Week activities and Dr. N.S. Shubhashree presented the E Week report of the I year Campus. As along the E week team got ready with the participation, merit and excellence certificates for to be distribution by the Chief Guest.
The Valedictory session completed with a dance performance from Computer Science Department students. Ms. Sindhuja, faculty from Computer Applications gave the vote of thanks and bolted the E week events 2018.
The continuing Entrepreneurial Journey………. As the E Week 2018 came to an end, the spirit of Entrepreneurial excitement started. This was believed as the beginning of new E journey. To network with the National E summit, to launch more Job Creators into the World the E members organized a trip to New Delhi, and to mark their uniqueness Arizon T-shirt with Imagine Innovate Incubate logo was printed on the Tees.