Every person aspires to become an entrepreneur, while some succeed others falter. The National Entrepreneurship Network (NEN), which is the leader in entrepreneurship education, has been encouraging engineering colleges to start E-Cells throughout the country to encourage students to grow as entrepreneurs.
One such Entrepreneurship Cell (E-Cell) is Aspera at the Vidya Vardhaka College of Engineering (VVCE), which was started in the year 2005 but was officially launched in 2007 with the name ‘Prerana.’ Later, the name was changed to ‘Aspera’ in 2009. Aspera has been actively taking part in activities conducted by NEN since its inception.
Speaking to Star of Mysore, Aspera Co-ordinator Prof. Manjula Murthy said that NEN had been guiding students in term of starting a new business, connecting the budding entrepreneurs from college to various industries and also to investors.
Aspera has been conducting activities throughout the year. This apart, regular meetings are conducted every Saturday where students come out with their idea of starting a new business. This is where seniors take the lead and guide their juniors to start their own business under the umbrella of Aspera, she said.
There are different concepts under which the meetings are conducted. There is a concept called ‘100 Rupees’ where the budding entrepreneur is given Rs. 100 which he/she has to invest and use the same money to purchase raw materials and come out with a product. They should also market their product and convince the consumers to purchase the product. This apart, members of Aspera also discuss about new business ideas and problems related to the college.
“The idea of starting a business is not to make profit, but to make students understand the functioning of the market and learn about the difficulties that they would have to face once they are out of the college,” said Prof. Manjula Murthy.
During the E-Week-2013, Aspera conducted workshops, seminars where opportunities available in the neighbourhood were discussed. Many of the students showed their interest to take up agro-based startups such as starting vermicompost enterprise and similar businesses. Aspera was also crowned Champion Runner-Up by NEN during E-Week-2013.
On-campus activities during E-Week included “Startup Mysore” in which students from different disciplines were selected for mentorship to start their own ventures. The crown of this success story has been rewarding. They were declared the Champion Runner-Up by NEN during the current E-Week after a thorough audit by the hosts of the championships, NEN, cutting across more than 600 institutions along the length and breadth of India.
Currently around six companies are being run under the umbrella of Aspera — a) Dil Ke Paas, b) Hidden Reflections, c) Go Tee, d) Tech Ambush, e) Reviewer’s Guild, f) Illusions — which have been guided by NEN, seniors and college.
Tech Ambush: Tech Ambush is a website which was started by Adithya, Saurabh and Nagarjun, all students of VVCE. The website was launched in March, 2013 and it gives information about the latest Android, Windows phones, Blackberry news. The website also provides information about apps, new gadgets, games and other development in the field of technology.
Interested can visit www.techambush.com.
Hidden Reflections: Founded in Nov. 2010, Hidden Reflections is a one-stop printing, designing and media solutions company based in Mysore. It specialises in all types of printing, designing, merchandising and media solutions for events, businesses, organisations, causes and individuals. It provides marketing solutions in all shapes and sizes like billboards, t-shirts, pamphlets, visiting cards, newspaper ads, etc. The company also designs and maintains websites and produce promotional videos.
Hidden Reflections is managed by the students who have the passion to innovate, achieve and explore new trends in media, marketing and advertising. Recently, the company also took up event management and music management assignments. It is being managed by Nikhil Furtado, III year, BE (Mech).
Go Tee Apparel: GoTee Apparel strives to create the perfect t-shirt, hoodie, or other apparel, specialising in both customised and bulk orders. It deals with t-shirts, sweatshirts, hoodies, jerseys, caps and other apparel. Every product is customisable according to the need of the customers and available in any range. The company has also released t-shirts with its own designs. It was founded by Nikhil Furtado, S. Impana and M. Ashwin, all engine- ering students.
Illuzions: Illuzions is a designing company which was started by Niranjan during Feb, 2012. Currently the company has been taking assignment related to web designing, graphic designing and interior designing.
Reviewers’ Guild: Reviewers’ Guild is a website which is being managed by Abhishek Bhat. It was launched a couple of years ago and has been getting good response from the public.
The website basically has reviews about gadgets, movies, books, games and new trends in the market.
Abhishek has also been managing V-Think, an e-newsletter about VVCE. Interested can visit www.reviewersguild.com to get to know about latest books, movies, gadgets and other products in the market.
Dil Ke Paas: Dil Ke Paas is a company started by M. Abhishek during his days in the college. He passed out of the college during 2011 and was working for a company till recently. Later, he quit his job and started his own business. Abhishek creates unique greeting cards which are a combination of his mechanical skills and art works.
Abhishek has also come out with a dehusking machine which works on both manual and electrical mode. He said that he had work on the machine before letting it into the market.
Apna Mess: Apna Mess is a canteen which is being run by Manish Kumar, a 6th semester Computer Science student. Manish Kumar started the mess to cater to the needs of North Indian students who find it difficult to adjust to the South Indian food.
The canteen has been serving around 60 students who visit the place every day to have their breakfast, lunch and dinner. The food is offered at reasonable price and it has been doing well since the day of its inception.
The students said the college had been supporting them in their endeavours. Prof. Manjula said that Aspera was looking out to come out with technology-based products. “We want to come out with technology-based products, materialise the product and also patent it. Further, we are looking forward to come out with software and environment-based products in our future endeavours,” she added.
With Vidya Vardhaka College lending its support to the students, one can expect more number of entrepreneurs emerging out of the institutions.
source: http://www.StarofMysore.com / Home> Feature Articles / by S.N. Venkatnag Sobers / March 17th, 2013