E-Cell@NIILM-CMS: The Journey Begins

With abundance of floating talent, and a plethora of ideas waiting to be tapped, it was time NIILM-CMS created a conduit for students to expose themselves to the world of entrepreneurship. Thus came into being, The Entrepreneurship Cell of NIILM-CMS in the year 2010. With the spirit of enterprise being our motto, we have been actively playing our part in the development of the entrepreneurial ecosystem associated with the youth and student community, globally. With a variety of events and activities under our belt, we provide ample opportunities for both the members and the non-members of our cell to develop their potentials to the fullest.

Vision

The cell aims at becoming one of its kind in actively mentoring, launching and supporting today's youth to realize their dreams.

Mission

• To motivate and inspire students to take up the challenge of entrepreneurship.
• To equip them with necessary skills and provide all possible assistance.
• Promote creative thinking and an entrepreneurial mindset among the students.
• Promote innovations and help convert them into market accepted products.
• In short the mission of the cell is to develop an entrepreneurial spirit among the youth and to become a support system for translating their latent ideas into viable enterprises.

We at the E-Cell undertake the following activities to accomplish our said mission.

• Organizing guest lectures, workshops, panel discussions with eminent personalities.
• Expose the youth to the latest innovations and entrepreneurial success stories.
• Establish linkages with the Industry and encourage student industry interaction.
• Network with angel investors, VC’s and provide incubation opportunities for viable projects.

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National Seminar on “Igniting Entrepreneurial Mindset” cum All-India Business Plan Competition-2011 had been organized on 15th January, 2011.Entrepreneurs and Intrapreneurs were invited for special talks. Student participants from reputed B-Schools across the country participated in the event and won awards and prizes.

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Recent Developments

Incubation Centre

The Incubation and Entrepreneurship centre at NIILM-CMS fosters creativity and offers support in translating ideas to businesses. The aim is to nurture the spirit of entrepreneurship among talented and ambitious students.

Infrastructure

The Incubation Centre offers on-site business facilities to aid entrepreneurship among students. The facilities on campus include office space, computers, printers, communication systems, and Internet connectivity etc. - amenities that budding entrepreneurs may need at the business plan stage of a new venture. It also provides a meeting room for discussion, to propel ideas and to network.

Professional Mentoring and Business Advice

The incubation centre would enable students to reshape their business plans to commercial models and to make it a success.

The centre would help students

• To look in to the procedures, methodology, access funding, mentoring among other activities which are vital to setting up and sustain a business
• Provide valuable management and consultancy advice that they will almost certainly need to guide them through all the how's, why's, what's and when's of business
• Impart the hand holding support that most start-ups need, to enable them to move forward and experiment with business models

The Incubation Centre also has connections with organizations and individuals, to encourage students and help them draw on a bigger canvas and facilitate sources of funding their projects. It provides a business environment, to think and act like entrepreneur.

This centre will bring together student innovators, entrepreneurs, Alumni, venture capitalist, bankers, subject experts and mentors to provide an ecosystem that will help students understand the processes and policies related to commercializing their business plans.

In a nutshell, Entrepreneurship-Cell is an endeavour of the institute through the student body to encourage "innovation, incubation and entrepreneurship”. This cell is aimed at developing entrepreneurial traits among the students, help budding entrepreneurs achieve their goals, as well as engage in some real life projects which could be beneficial to the society. The centre aims to prepare students to lead, innovate, and think entrepreneurially in business, public and social service to be job creators and role models.

Emphasis is also given on social entrepreneurship which is different from business entrepreneurship as the main goal of the former is to promote social development, not profits. In fact, it is all about optimizing profit rather than maximizing profit.

Vimal Babu
Coordinator
Entrepreneurship-Cell
NIILM-CMS

"Experience taught me a few things. One is to listen to your gut, no matter how good something sounds on paper. The second is that you're generally better off sticking with what you know. And the third is that sometimes your best investments are the ones you don't make."

- Donald Trump, real estate and entertainment mogul

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