The Road Not Taken!
The land we called India is no alien to the concept of business and trade. The Aryan period gave birth to the 4 castes, each responsible for a specific task. The “Vaishyas” was given the task of Business and Trade. This concept of business and trade is deeply rooted in India. From trading activities that erupted during the Kanishka Empire during the 1st Century to ’80s where the nation took a stand on commodities like Jute, cotton, and spices. The idea of owning a ‘business’ runs in the veins of every Indian.
Confined to cultural, religious, and social acerbity, entrepreneurship post-independence started to transform itself into a new shape. Lack of support from political parties, not so favorable laws, rigid policies, and lack of research initiatives hindered the growth of entrepreneurship during that era.
But then it was in the mid-80s when Prime Minister Rajeev Gandhi declared ‘Liberalization of Computer Industry’ followed by the commencement of NASSCOM in 1988. From thereon, there was no looking back as the Indian startup’s ecosystem progressed gradually.
The next few decades witnessed significant growth in the entrepreneurial ventures across the economic and social sectors. The changing political and economic environment drove momentum towards entrepreneurship especially the last decade witnessed noteworthy improvement in the quality of startups in India. In 2007, India witnessed the launch of its first eCommerce startup with the birth of Flipkart followed by Zomato and Quikr in 2008. It was no looking back from there. In the years to follow, India saw a big boom in the start-up culture and many entrepreneurs became a part of this wave of trend and launched ventures like Ola, Oyo, PayTM, Big Basket, FoodPanda, MakeMyTrip, etc.
All the big educational institutes started being a part of the change and through the formation of entrepreneurship cells, the culture of entrepreneurship further strengthened in India. MICA became a part of this change in 2015 when the Entrepreneurship Development Cell (EDC) was formulated as an informal committee. The committee in the very next year became a formal one and since then there has been no looking back.
The Entrepreneurship Development Cell at MICA aims to foster and nurture talented young minds with a vision. With India witnessing the rise of startup culture, the committee encourages and guides anyone and everyone who is bitten by the entrepreneurs. Ever since its inception, the MICA-EDC has been devoted to the objective of encouraging the concept of entrepreneurship in the communication sector. MICA-EDC aspires to offer business support services in order to nurture buzzing ideas that have the potential to bring about a change in this sector.
Through these blogs, I will try to give you an insight into how MICA aka The School of Ideas fosters the spirit of entrepreneurship and how EDC works at providing the right support for the idea to become into reality.
Until then, “Stay Hungry, Stay Foolish.”
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