What’s the theme of eSummit’15?
“All the forces in the world are not as powerful as an idea whose time has come.” –
What Hugo said is cent percent true. Over the years we have seen so many revolutions taking place. The industrial revolution, invention of electricity, and if we talk about more recent examples, computers and smart phones! Companies like Microsoft, Apple, Oracle, Google, etc. all came with the idea of computers and as we all know, no force could stop them.
Now, it is the time of one such idea — Build something which solves any day-to-day problem or which makes our lives easier. And by building something, I mean building a start-up. This is just the perfect time to start-up. All the omens are in favour of staring-up in today’s India. This may sound a bit philosophical, but it’s true. The culture and spirit of entrepreneurship is spreading like a forest fire, good ideas are getting funded easily, there are a lot of people to look up to and take guidance from, government is supporting, and the list can go on and on.
Some people say that they’ll start-up after some time and they have plenty of reasons for it. Obviously, it’s not like now or never. But in our opinion, if a person really has an idea, and he is not starting-up just due to the fear of failing or giving it a shot only after he’s saved enough for his future, he’ll really regret his decision after a few years. If not you, then someone else will do it. This is the time!
So, on these lines, we’ve decided the theme for eSummit’15 to be “Ready, Steady, Start-up!”.
According to Nasscom, “At least 90% of India’s startups are in six cities: Bengaluru, NCR, Mumbai, Hyderabad, Pune and Chennai”.
Over the last few years, we have seen a lot of successful start-ups coming out of Bangalore, Delhi, Mumbai, Hyderabad, Pune, etc. Snapdeal, Flipkart and Zomato are a few popular names. And there are many which are really taking off. But so far, it has just been a trailer. The real movie begins when this entrepreneurial infection spreads across the entire nation. And the movie has now begun!
Stating ET-
“Away from the metros and India’s Silicon Valley, a quiet revolution is brewing in the country’s tier-II cities. A whole bunch of start-ups is being incubated in research institutions that are fostering cutting-edge ideas and seeing the companies through their first steps.”
A lot of start-ups are emerging out of the two-tier cities like Indore, Lucknow, Bhubaneshwar, Ahmedabad, Allahabad, etc. They still don’t have the exposure of metros, but a revolution is happening and soon we’ll see the entire picture. But there are a few areas where these cities have edge over the metros. The cost of functioning and set-up is much lower, there are many talented people who for reasons have to stay in their home towns or nearby can be tapped and smaller cities are good for the initial experiment rather than losing big. These are pretty powerful reasons. The initial set up costs kill the very idea of starting up many-a-times.
So, in this E-Summit, our main focus is to give start-ups from these cities the exposure they don’t get. Our aim is to get all of them under one roof for a couple of days and give them that healthy entrepreneurial environment. Together, they’ll be like a creed and it could a life changer for them.
There’s a beautiful Hindi proverb which we’ve modified a little- “Behati Ganga me jaldi se haath dho lena chahiye!”
So don’t wait. Just get ready, steady and start-up!
Cheers! Team E-Cell, IIT Kanpur.
