(Day 1 at IIT Guwahati Entrepreneurship Summit)

First of all KUDOS to the organizing team of Shrijan Maulick for organizing such a quality program at such an affordable price for all the students.

As an online entrepreneur and social media strategist, I was there just to encounter those great minds, yes the guest speakers.

Schedule for the day was like:

10.00 a.m to 12.30p.m: Master class in Business Admin. by Vivek Nagpaul and his companion.

12.45 p.m to 1.45 p.m: Lecture by Shubho Sengupta (Digital Media Consultant)

1.45 p.m to 3.00 p.m: Lunch

3.00 p.m to 4.00 p.m: Lecture by Bhavna Toor from NSEF

4.00 p.m to 8.00 p.m: Strategic Innovation Game

 

1st Speaker: Vivek Nagpaul

To amaze Vivek Nagpaul was great in entertaining the entire audience. He started with the point 'Turning Technology into Business', but soon got lost in his personal zone of experience sharing and giving louder smile. He made (tried to make) the audience comfortable by telling his own stories, I mean personal stories which is really a great way to connect. But hey we were told that he will teach us business, something called Master Class in Business, where was that? :)

He termed certain things as Money, Dent, Fame etc. AND to amaze wrote technology wrong as Technoly (sounds really funny for a guy like him who is a real globe trotter). One more thing I would like to mention that I didn't enjoy the way he addressed few of us with the wording "TU". Reason might be so that he was not made aware of the situation that there are outsiders too. And in that case ticking meter points towards organizers. But as a whole I enjoyed the first speaker. The important thing to mention here is the National Anthem that we all sang after his speech. That was a wonderful moment.

 

 

2nd Speaker: Shubho Sengupta

Subho Sengupta was the main point why I was there. He started good but the microphone ditched a little at the starting, that was the point from where crowd got distracted. He made a good and indeed valid point on why we are on social media using the Hierarchy pyramid theory. His ideas on content curation were also good. His theory of “Fish where fishes are" that he explained there really makes sense. 

While sharing the experiences as above, I must clear one thing that I enjoyed him only because of the fact that the topic he discussed was my core area of earning my piece of bread & butter. Unfortunately, same was not the case with the entire audience. They were not made clear on the most important part what social media actually is. Apart from this, he was not tidy with his presentation. All his slides were in a random manner which he excused for last minute preparation. But that should not be the way. A presenter should always be clear with what is he showing to his audience. To mention, he couldn't get to the core of social media which is always the engagement. 

 

3rd Speaker: Bhavna Toor 

Just after a good lunch, I thought to skip the lecture by this young lady. But I didn't. And that turned out to be a good decision indeed. She started great with a "Hero" theme. Her topic was social Entrepreneurship which really influenced a lot of IITians present there. The influence was so good that some of my contacts in IIT-Guwahati in fact literally called me up and discussed about a social change that we are capable of bringing to our own Assam. 

But honestly, what I liked most about this young lady is her art of correlating the stories with the real-life situations that she explained. She is a true story teller. Unlike Mr. Nagpaul, she never went far away from her original topic.

 

4th Speaker: Phanindra Sama

After the evening Tea Break, I saw the exact tiredness on every attendees' face. I was sitting on my seat wondering who is that guy, how does he look like etc. Suddenly, I heard someone murmuring "aare yehi hain kya woh?" "yeh bolega kya abhi?" etc. Yes, people were going by the appearance of this simplest speaker among all four on that 1st day of IES 2012. For a moment, the same thought also patted me hard, will he deliver the worst lecture of the day or it would be that guy from my own niche! 

Making those murmurs wrong, this guy spoke great. Not only great, he engaged the audience so well that RedBus became an instant hot topic for everyone. His simplicity and the way he took pleasure explaining his heart was superb. Never experienced that much of attachment to the topic ever before in a speaker.

Strategic Innovation Game:

The last program of the day that IES 2012 had in its bag was the strategic innovation game being executed with the help of a software/application on a computer system. Due to time constraints, I unfortunately couldn't attend that game and so couldn't include it here either. 

 

The Takeaway (what I personally got):

Vivek Nagpaul = Money is the supreme power. He can do much better than Harvard. 

Shubho Sengupta = Social Media good. Use the content that others want to listen/hear. 

Bhavna Toor = You should act and act now. We are heroes within.

 

Phanindra Sama = Stick to your point. Reminded the dialouge from Om Shanti Om - "When you try real hard to meet your objective/s, world sets conspiracy to fulfill that."

 

 

 

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