IITMAANA hosts IIT Madras students in California
IITMAANA hosted six IIT Madras students who received grants from the IITMAANA Travel Grant program to attend an International Business Plan competition at University of San Francisco and a Students Entrepreneurship summit at Stanford University.
IITMAANA, 2010 May
Dinner at Chaat Paradise
IITMAANA members - Sridhar Lavu, Indira Subramanian, and Shrinivas Mohan, met with three of the students - Rakshit, Vaibhav, and Dhruvin and headed out for dinner at Chaat Paradise in the Bay Area, California. We had a good time exchanging stories and experiences from our campus days.
The students expressed their gratitude towards IITMAANA and presented us with a Gajendra Circle memento. It was a wonderful gesture on their part. On our part, we at IITMAANA are working hard to enhance the program. Earlier in March, the IITMAANA Board extended the scope of the program to support internship and exchange programs.
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ASES Summit 2010
ASES (Asia-Pacific Student Entrepreneurship Society), a Stanford University based organization, aims to promote entrepreneurship among the student community in developing economies of the Asia-Pacific region. The 2010 Summit was held at Stanford University from April 4-10. Five students from IIT Madras - Rakshit, Vaibhav, Dhruvin, Aditya, and Midhun, were selected for the summit from a total of 45 delegates from several countries. The IIT Madras team is working towards organizing the next summit on our campus in 2011.
Students Report
The summit was wonderful; to experience Silicon Valley culture first hand was really terrific. We got tours of Google and Yahoo headquarters, and a Mobile startup in Mountain View. Google goes that extra mile to ensure that the working environment is still very startup friendly and innovative. The Mobile startup was the best with an informal culture and a 3-member team typing code faster than anyone we have seen type.
The best lecture at the summit was the keynote speech by Cyriac Roeding, co-founder of Shopkick - one of top 10 most downloadable iPhone apps. He shared his entrepreneurial journey and said that "A good manager is one who makes himself useless after a particular point". The best panel discussion at the summit was the one on 'Cross-Cultural exposure'. Prof. Dasher from Stanford and Prof. Wadhwa from India (currently at Harvard Law) said that the Silicon Valley owes its success to its cross-cultural framework. Prof. Vivek pointed out the strong mentorship culture, citing his experience with Vinod Khosla mentoring him for 2 hours for his first startup on the phone without actually knowing who he was.
The most important aspect that we learnt from the week-long summit was that one should not be afraid of failures. For people here, 'Failure is a badge of honor'.
We will cherish these memories forever and we cannot thank IITMAANA enough for supporting the IITMAANA Travel Grant program. It was a once in a lifetime opportunity. A special thanks to Lavu and Indira for making that evening special at Chaat Paradise.
Rakshit, Vaibhav, and Dhruvin
International Business Plan Competition
The University of San Francisco International Business Plan competition was held on March 25-26 of 2010. Two students from IIT Madras - Varun and Midhun, were invited for the finals. They were runners-up in the Clean Tech track and were the only non-US team.
Students Report
We reached San Francisco on the 24th of March and worked on our presentation late into the night. On the 25th, the event inauguration was followed by a mentoring session. Each team spent about 40 minutes with a panel of venture capitalists and experienced investors. We discussed our business plan and presentation and they advised us on the feasibility of our ideas and suggested improvements. Based on the suggestions from this session, we spent the night tweaking our business plan.
On the following day, we started our presentation with an elevator pitch for 90 seconds, followed by the main presentation for 12 minutes, and then a Q&A session. The judges appreciated the technical aspects of our plan, but we realized that the managerial aspects of our presentation needed improvement. Nevertheless, we were placed second in the Clean Technology track of the competition and qualified for the finals of the elevator pitch - the only non-US team to do so.
The entire event was a wonderful experience and we got to meet and interact with a lot of other budding entrepreneurs, experienced venture capitalists, angel investors, and a lot of wonderful people. We sincerely thank IITMAANA for making this trip possible for us.
Midhu and Varun
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Program » IITMAANA Travel Grant
Photos » Photos from Travel Grant Recipients
Acknowledgement
On behalf of IITMAANA, I thank the IIT Madras Office of Alumni Affairs for helping administer the program, and the students, researchers, and faculty of IIT Madras for their active participation in making the program a success.
Credits
The report and photos were compiled and edited by Sridhar Lavu. The report was prepared with inputs from Rakshit, Vaibhav, Dhruvin, Midhu, Varun, and Aditya.
Photos and captions are courtesy of Sridhar Lavu, Rakshit, and Dhruvin.
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