IIM Calcutta Innovation Park joins the focused effort of the Government of Mizoram to take entrepreneurship activity to the next level by helping scale business enterprises in the state.
IIM Calcutta Innovation Park joins the focused effort of the Government of Mizoram to take entrepreneurship activity to the next level by helping scale business enterprises in the state.
IIMCIP partnered with the Government of Mizoram and MEDMOC to kickstart the one-year-long Mizoram Kailawn Accelerator programme in the state of Mizoram on December 21, 2020. Pu Lalrikhuma Sailo, the Principal Advisor cum Additional Secretary, Planning & Programme Implementation Department, Govt. of Mizoram, inaugurated the program online, which was followed by the first boot camp attended by 20 entrepreneurs from the state. The Accelerator aims to identify promising start-ups with proven business models in revenue stage and provide them with intense handholding and mentoring through a structured programme to achieve sustainability and scale operations within and outside the state.
The Mizoram Kailawn Accelerator looks at structured intervention that ranges from capacity building to mentoring and from market linkage to funding support. This coupled with intense mentoring support and handholding will help startups align with their growth aspirations. Additionally, entrepreneurs in the North East also need to build capacities and widen their knowledge base especially in business processes, customer identification and acquisition. This fast track accelerator with multiple cohorts is in line with the Mizoram Government’s Startup Policy. In addition to mentorship and investment opportunities, the Accelerator aims to facilitate access to logistical and technical resources as well as shared office space. in collaboration with other incubation centres. The selection of businesses/start-ups for acceleration was competition based.
IIM Calcutta Innovation Park, with its large network of mentors, investors, market and startup connects, will facilitate customized need-based engagements for these entrepreneurs. The accelerator will consist of two cohorts – Growth Certification Cohort and Growth Mentoring Cohort. For 20 of those start-ups supported by various Govt. programmes/schemes, a curriculum-based structured certification programme has been designed on various aspects of attaining sustainability and scaling up and presented in a blended virtual and physical 6-month programme. Out of these 20 startups from the Growth Certification Cohort, IIMCIP will select 10-12 of the most promising start-ups and offer them dedicated mentoring, handholding and acceleration support over the next 6 months, to enable faster scale-up.
With the growing interest in entrepreneurship, the active support provided by an equally growing entrepreneurial ecosystem and the able backing of Mizoram State Entrepreneurship Development and Monitoring Committee (MEDMOC), this year-long accelerator aims to take entrepreneurship up the next step on the “Kailawn” (ladder in Mizo).
A 2-day workshop on Business Plan Development was conducted by IIMCIP at Assam Startup-The Nest on 12 and 13 July’19. A part of the capacity building initiatives, the workshop was especially designed for the startups incubated at The Nest and was addressed by experts like Dr. Subhrangshu Sanyal, CEO, IIMCIP; Chandradeep Mitra, Mentor, IIMCIP; Vikram Duggal, Mentor, IIMCIP; Devashis Gupta, Mentor, IIMCIP; Suman Mukhopadhyay, Mentor, IIMCIP; and Gaurav Kapoor, Mentor, IIMCIP.
IIM Calcutta Innovation Park organised a one-day “Thinking Social” seminar at Goa in association with Goa State Innovation Council on 25th January, 2019. The primary objective of this exercise was to build awareness, interest and desire to engage with the Social Enterprise Ecosystem amongst the aspiring entrepreneurs and start ups who were about to embark on their entrepreneurship journey soon. This seminar series introduced the budding entrepreneurs to the concept of social entrepreneurship in the rapidly evolving global economy.
IIM Calcutta Innovation Park launched the NIDHI Entrepreneur-In-Residence program on 2nd May 2019 by inducting the 1st batch of the fellows. The NIDHI-EIR Program would provide subsistence grant to an aspiring or budding entrepreneur of considerable potential for pursuing a promising technology business idea.
The ‘Learn the Art and Science of Pitching’ Workshop was organised by IIM Calcutta Innovation Park at the IIM Calcutta campus on 2nd and 3rd April 2019. All the 43 incubatees of IIM Calcutta Innovation Park attended the two-day workshop where they were mentored by Mr Srikant Sastri, Board Chairman of IIM Calcutta Innovation Park. Sessions were conducted on topics such as Funding landscape & how one should think about funding; Estimating one’s own funding needs and the Art of Story-telling
The ‘Training of Trainers on Entrepreneurship Development’ workshop for 15 delegates from Mizoram took place at the IIMC Campus from 14th – 17th February 2019. The participants were sensitized about structuring a business model canvas. The topics covered during the session were:
1. Reasons to carry out innovation & taking up entrepreneurship
2. Usage of Ideation Tools & Techniques
3.Process undergone during Design Thinking
4.Structuring a Customer Value Proposition Model
5. Genesis and structure of a Business Plan and
6. Process of Drafting a Business model canvas.
An elaborate discussion on ideation tools and techniques used while structuring customers Value Proposition Model, marketing and branding requirement for any product was held. The trainers also interacted with various start-ups of IIMCIP.
IIM Calcutta Innovation Park (IIMCIP) in association with the Directorate of Micro, Small and Medium Enterprises, Government of West Bengal conducted 3-day residential programmes for the officers of the District Industries Centre and the Directorate of MSME at IIM Calcutta. The training programmes were held in 3 batches.
IIM Calcutta Innovation Park in association with the Department of Micro, Small & Medium Enterprises & Textiles (MSME&T), Government of West Bengal organised the first Entrepreneurship Development Centre Network (EDCN) program in West Bengal at the IIM Calcutta Campus from 5th to 7th July 2018. The program aimed to ignite the Young Minds by helping them to ideate, have them nurtured and thereby create an Entrepreneurial Ecosystem right at the grass roots.
IIM Calcutta Innovation Park (IIMCIP) in association with Department of Science and Technology, Government of India has launched North East Accelerator Program (NEAP) to create a supportive eco-system for the entrepreneurs in North-east with STPI and Ennovent as partners of the initiative. Out of over 150 applications from start-ups across North-east, 12 most scalable ideas were shortlisted and subsequently considered for acceleration by IIMCIP. A total of 3 bootcamps were held in Guwahati, Assam. The first one was held from April 3 to 5 at the National Institute of Rural Development while the second was held from June 8 to 9 at the Indian Institute of Entrepreneurship. The third bootcamp was held from August 2 to 3 at the National Institute of Rural Development and Panchayati Raj. Start-ups from the following domain are part of NEAP: Food and Agriculture, Logistics, Education, Fashion and Tourism. The program concluded with Demo Day where NEAP start-ups pitched to investors from banks and FIs, investor organisations, HNIs located at Assam, Kolkata and Bangalore.
The capacity building program was undertaken by Mr. Prakash Mundhra, (Marketing Director Prmotex Industries). The workshop attended by 10 startups.
Mr. Mundhra spoke about the element of a marketing system that includes the development and delivery of company or product messages to targeted customers. Paid advertising along with a number of other unpaid promotional tools are used to accomplish marketing communication objectives.
There are different types of marketing strategies available. Picking up a marketing strategy includes analyzing the needs of business, target audience and specifications of products.
The two main types of marketing strategy are:
- 1. Business to business (B2B) marketing
- 2. Business to consumer (B2C) marketing.
According to him “Marketing begins with a creator and ends with a consumer. It’s the process by which consumers learn about and obtain products and services. Marketing is more than just advertising, though it does include that aspect of the process. It also includes the media through which a product or services offered and the research that goes into the final decisions of how to package and sell it.”
Some do’s and dont’s in Email-Marketing :
1. Bulk email is not very effecting marketing strategy
2. While drafting an email subject line should be very important
3. Email should not be too long
4. Keeping track of the bounced mail
Lastly he mentioned about an impotent tool of marketing which is digital marketing :The Internet and all its permutations is the latest frontier for marketers. An online presence is almost a requirement in the 21st century as part of any marketing efforts. Marketing can be done in a huge array of formats, from websites to social media and mobile applications, and can allow for customization, content-based ads, and interaction from the audience.
The workshop ended with an interactive Q & A session, where questions were posed by not only the participants but faculty as well.
