Entrepreneurship Week 2K18

The Entrepreneurship Week at Dr. MGR Educational and Research Institute spread over the Maduravoyal and Adayalampattu Campus was a resounding success.  With more than 15 events, we reached out to 4000 + students in the campus with the E Week Theme “Live your Entrepreneurial Dream “.  Students worked on the theme – Break Barriers ! Create Wealth ! and Change India ! through the week. 

E Week 2K 18 organized by Arizon E Cell

Date

Event

Photos link

Jan 8th – Feb 3, 2018

The Planning

 

 

Feb 5 – 9. 2018

Promotional

https://photos.app.goo.gl/YtX0H8Z8UPufckSf1

https://photos.app.goo.gl/DqQUqMCGdy7Xv69X2

 

Feb 10th, 2018

Inauguration

https://photos.app.goo.gl/fx0VCRNCDVJOioEv1

 

https://photos.app.goo.gl/zmRycAc6fabstEWm1

10th Feb 2018, 2:00 PM

Workshop on Innovation

https://photos.app.goo.gl/CPizXbnytqDAXjbB3

Feb 11th 2018

Day of Preparation

 

10:00 AM, 12th Feb 2018

Business Simulation

https://photos.app.goo.gl/47OllcjG7ko8omcO2

2:00 PM, 12th Feb 2018

Khelo MGR Girls

https://photos.app.goo.gl/jPOEIIHGMuDSqJSy2

 

10:00 AM to 5:00 PM,  13th Feb 2018

Pitch Camp

https://photos.app.goo.gl/VkXQ9CvNAfasNIfF2

2:00 PM, 13th Feb 2018

Movie :  Greatest Game that was played

https://photos.app.goo.gl/ijxWejX8vnJA7OSP2

 

13th Feb 2018, 4:00 PM

Launch of Sunrise Food

 

10:00 AM, 14th Feb 2018

Can you Sell?

https://photos.app.goo.gl/eZmjcKRweFlwwAfv2

 

2:00 PM,  14th Feb 2018

What’s Next ?

https://photos.app.goo.gl/K8FKIpnrD5px9CYU2

 

 

10:00 AM, 15th Feb 2018- 10:00 AM, 16th Feb 2018

Tech-On

https://photos.app.goo.gl/jxU9hDtGzJ2AhOkp2

 

https://drive.google.com/drive/folders/13NOEbpHQttseU68SMBCsIiR-UO-fYpKa?usp=sharing

16th Feb 2018, 2:00 PM

Valedictory Session

https://photos.app.goo.gl/Plr6UN0omKw3PIyv2 

 

The Entrepreneurial journey Continues

 

 

 

 

 E Week @ MGR

A Student Blog

The Planning (Jan 8th – Feb 3, 2018)

The E Week Launch Webinar on 8th Jan 2018 set the tone for the 10th edition of the Entrepreneurial Celebrations.  This year the E Week was spread over two campuses – one by us – the Seniors from the Faculty of Engineering & Technology; Faculty of Architecture and Faculty of Dental Surgery and the other by the first year Kids !

A group of us put our heads together and brainstormed on what would capture the imagination of our friends.  A paper presentation or model or a business presentation was sooooo boring !  We needed to pep things up !  We decided on an Innovation Workshop, a Business Simulation exercise, some fun events – Can you Sell ?  and What’s Next ? .  These events would be sans MS powerpoint !  Only talk ! 

The guys in our University – not much can enthuse them –  as I was listening to Radio FM – I heard the Khelo India refrain ! A flash of inspiration ! Why not Khelo MGR ?  Most of the boys at the University visit the gym more regularly than the classes ! This should work. 

We were happy with these events, but our Faculty Coordinator Rama Mam, put her foot down and said, “ Must have a Project presentation and Prototype for sure !  So were back in the discussion mode.  Hepsi mam saw us and gave an idea. “ Project presentations – yes but we will give them only 3 mins and 3 slides !  “ So there will be No Death by Powerpoint !  “ .  With Hepsi Mam help we started the “Pitch Camp – 3 Minute Pitch – 3MP ! 

Bhuvana Akka came to our rescue for the Model !  “ Let’s have a live Project building “ she said. Lets get Ritchie Street here to the Lab.  We will have a 24 hr non stop Tech- On for our Techie geeks !”  24 hrs non – stop ?   Stay in the Startup Center ?  Wow That sounded so cool. 

We were thrilled with our exciting killer events !  or so we thought!  We did some role Organization :

Chairperson                             : Rama Mam

Board Member                        :Arun Kumar Sir, Hepsibah Mam, Sindhuja Mam and  Bhuvaneshwari

CEO                                        : Jyothirmayi  ( on Rotational Basis)

CTO                                        : Madhesh & Dhilip

Creativity Head                      : Gokul with a bunch of freelancers

Sales & Marketing                  : Aishwarya and Kurthika

Documentation                       : Gokul, Jyothirmai

Human Relations                    :Melwyn & Pavani

Event Organizers                    : Mithil, Pavan, Pankaj, Aakash, Tharun, Roshan, Aravind, Dharani and Aisha, Manjusha, Sonam, John

\

Promotions (Feb 5 – 9. 2018)

Each Event Coordinator  came back with very creative Posters .  But Rama Mam shot down most of them.     Too many words !   What is the Action Point ?  and What up with Rama Mam and her fixation on Tense when we are so tense ?

As we were struggling with the posters for the E Week, other competing Universities were posting their peppy videos and posters !   Tension was mounting fast !  Gokul, the Creativity Head with a gun pointed to his head to come up with a promotional video that passed the scrutiny ! Whew!

The Posters we designed were sent to the Printer who complained that the MGR logo was hitting out at the Wadhwani Logo (Idikkidu Sir ) !  Some more last minute modifications and were good to go ! 

 

Overnight the Banners were up at the different Campuses and we started spamming all the Whatsapp groups we were part of with our promo video and posters.  I also started noticing that my juniors at the hostel were fast disappearing whenever I appeared !

 

We were assigned VOC118, for the Arizon E Cell  !  We were excited, but when we went there we found two broken tables and 3 chairs ! It took some bullying from Rama Mam to get some decent chairs, electrical cabling, internet etc. for the room and it started looking warm and inviting.

 

The first Sales for the Event was “Prashant from B.Tech. CSE. II.  My hands shook with excitement when I took down his details and the registration fee.  We got a few more registrations but there was a lull !

So we had an emergency meeting and decided we had to start with some promotional activities !  We put up a table with face painting near the registration desk. We made a princely amount of Rs. 60/- and polite enquiries ….

Next day we convinced friends from the Computer Applications Dept to do some Street Dancing at the Basket Ball Court.  On 9th Feb 2018, we got outdoor speakers and started a flash mob !  The 5 dancers attracted more people and soon a crowd of 50 was dancing and another 500 watching from around and from the tall buildings ! WE had managed to wake up the students to the E Week World !  Once the crowd had come together, we took the E Week Pledge !  Madhesh translated the pledge in Tamil and read that out.  Oh that was so Awesome ! 

Taking the E Week Pledge at the Basket Ball Court with 500 or so students was a awe inspiring!  Where are all these Entrepreneurs ? I am ready to help them right away !

 

Inauguration (Feb 10th, 2018)

We had some exciting speakers for the Inauguration.  Ms. Linda Doshi, Director – Schaffer Industries, U.S.A. and an alumni – Suman Jha who also was the E Leader in 2016 inaugurated the event with inspiring words.  Ms. Linda’s advice in a nutshell – Bring Professionalism into your enterprise !  Learn to take Risks ! You are sure to fail , but get up and start again !  Manage the Cash Flow !  Employ the Best People and Trust them !  Share the rewarWorkshop ds with People ! 

Suman Jha’s story was the epitome of “Live your Entrepreneurial Dream “ Born in a modest family in Bihar, he saw electricity for the first time in 6th standard.  He caught the Entrepreneruship Bug when  he participated in an NEN event and thought, if these guys can do it, why not me ? “ He worked like a maniac  with his entrepreneurial vision and had founded his first company “Navi Samagri” in his third year at University.  Subsequently he founded another company which folded up. He joined MapTags and was doing well but his thirst for the Entrepreneurial Dream made him start Giscle Systems.  This software kit which is collecting data for an automatic driver system was inspiring.  His miles to go before I sleep attitude just impressed us all so much!

Workshop on Innovation , 10th Feb 2018, 2:00 PM

Rama Mam conducted a Crash course on Innovative thinking for a group of 40 students.  Learn to ask why ?  Connect and Combine !  Challenge Assumptions ! These were the Mantras we learnt.  We also learnt the Design thinking methodology for prototyping.  The importance of Empathising with people facing a problem, defining the problem and then ideating ! We learnt to do this with some examples.  That was fun and inspiring.

Day of Preparation, Feb 11th 2018

Sunday was a day of preparing for the next day and uploading pictures in the Arizon facebook page.  The Business Simulation Organization Team got together for their planning and rehearsing.   I had some quick learning on digital promotion while I struggled with the fb uploading with the ever slimming and intermittent internet bandwidth at the campus !  After every upload I could feel the weight of the data almost physically.

Business Simulation, 10:00 AM, 12th Feb 2018

Lead by Arun Sir and his team consisting of Aakash, Tharun and Daniel the Simulation game was a hit.  There was a record of 76 participants.  As each team worked to produce paper ships they had to handle the Pollution Control Board and ISO Certification.  The pollution control Board went around with a Noise Detection kit and any team which made more than 70 deci bell sound was fined !  The Bank suddenly announced a demonetization drive and all Rs. 100 had to be returned.  There was almost a stampede at the Bank !  This was so much fun ! 

Khelo MGR Girls, 2:00 PM, 12th Feb 2018

This should have been the easiest to organize.  But Surprise !   WE had to plead with the girls to come to the play ground.  Finally Arun Sir used his muscle with the Biotech Dept. and around 60 girls came to the ground.  A Health instructor from Pink Gym lead the girls with some warm up exercises.  Then came the event.  Madhesh had organized 4 stations with activities and the team which would complete in shortest time was the winner. The 60 girls almost instantly reduced to about 25.  But these 25 were so sportive.  Excitement was in the air when the girls ran around and completed the tasks.  Four teams with 8 girls each participated in the game. 

Pitch Camp, 10:00 AM to 5:00 PM,  13th Feb 2018

The pitch camp was aimed to gather ideas and products that can be commercialized in near future, such that, the students gain a platform of self sustainability as soon as they finish their academic career. Dr. Hepsibah Sharmil briefed about the events. The forenoon session started with a lecture on analysing the false positive datas and misleading graphs by Dr. Venil Sumantran , (IIT, Adjunct professor). Students pitched their project ideas with a minimum of three crisp slides and was assessed by a judging panel which consisted of Prof. Venil Sumantran, Prof. Vijayakumar, Dept of mechanical enginnering and Prof. Narayanan, Dept of Civil engineering.

For the semi-finals, a total of 27 teams participated in the competition. Each team comprising of 3-4 members. Out of which 17 teams were selected for the finals. The judges made their review on the presentation and put in lot of insights to their ideas.  Meanwhile, Mr. Gokulakrishnan, an incubatee from NewGen IEDC project explained the tips and ideas to make a three minute presentation.

 

In the afternoon session, the final pitch was conducted wherein, the selected team members (17) presented their project ideas with the inputs given by the judges. The afternoon session had Prof. Mukesh Doble (Dept. of iotechnology, IIT) and Prof Ethiraj from Dept. of MEhanical Engineering of our Institute. They critically reviewed the presentation and gave valuable comments.

From these a total of 7 teams were selected.  The judges sat together to decide on the Winner and Runner.  Dr. Mukesh Doble and Dr. Venil gave an interesting suggestion.  By choosing ONE winner you will kill the others.  So, lets take 7 projects and assign a mentor who will take these student to develop their ideas better and these can be funded by the NewGen IEDC.  So we have 7 winners from the Pitch camp spanning all the Engineering Departments.  Project range from an aritificial limb to GIS enabled pollution tracking system to a detector for antibiotics from meat.  This was exciting ! 

Reporter : U. Prithika

 

S. No

Title of Project

Name

Dept

1

CHICTOO  An antibiotic detector 

Aarthishwari

Bio-Tech

M.Vichitra

T.S.Sibin

7

AK  LIMB’S

Y.U.NIVEDH

Mech

R.R.THANUSH RAMAN

Y.NIVEDHITA

Bio-Tech

S.VIGNESH

Mech

 

 

11

Destiny

 VISHAL KUMAR PANDEY

    BTECH –CSE

PRATIK RAJ

    BTECH-CIVIL

16

VOICE ENABLE ELECTRICAL DEVICESCONTROL SYSTEM USING ANDROID

M.PRITHEEPAN

EEE

K.S.SUPRAJA

S.P.SURESHRAJ

24

Monitoring and modeling of Ambient Air Pollutants In Korukupett region

M.JAYASREE 

Civil

E.SHRUTHI    

S.BHARATH    

HARIKANTH  

27

Improving efficiency in water pump

Rahul Upadhayay 

Mech

Rahul Kumar Pandit 

Magalur Dheeraj 

26

Agricultural Drone 

Magalur Dheeraj  

Mech

Rahul Upadhayay 

Rahul Kumar Pandit 

 

Launch of Sunrise Foods, 13th Feb 2018, 4:00 PM

A group of 3 students frm B.Sc. Catering Technology of our University, Suriya, Tanveer and Gowtham are passionate about Millet based foods.  They had been experimenting with food based on millets.  This project has been incubated at the NewGen IEDC.  This company was officially launched on 13th Feb 2018.  The Cookies, Sponge Cake and a fruity millet drink made by them drew the crowd like ants to honey.  The lip-smacking foods were priced but yet disappeared so fast !  We are looking forward to a larger menu from Sunrise Foods.

Can you Sell ? 10:00 AM, 14th Feb 2018

Marketing is the most important segment as of any business is concerned. So to cultivate and test marketing skills among students, CAN YOU SELL? was conducted. Bhuvi Akka along with Madhesh, John, Sonam and GK made all the 30 participants to pair up. For warming up, the participants were given 3 minutes to write all the states of India excluding the Union territories. The funniest part was when the calculations were made and people had written states including Pune, Delhi, Pondicherry, Andaman & Nicobar and Bhopal.

Random team was called out and were asked to pick a chit where bhuvi akka had written few products with cost. Then after a minute of prep time the seller had to convince Madhesh and GK to buy the same with price that they nd mentioned. Enthusiasm was shown by all the teams to sell the products they picked. It ended getting the remark of a fun filled business related event. Products like pink lipstick worth of Rs. 750 was sold by a team to Gk. Whereas, the team that crossed the bridge were Pratik and Vishal sold a pair of high heels to Madhesh worth of 2K. The most fun part was when Sadia and team sold typewriter worth of 5K to Madhesh. The most impressive one was when Modi and his mate sold a mortar and pestle stating that it is a mart kitchen tool where I being a fresher to cook Indian Recipes will do it in seconds.

The participants hooted and enjoyed the entire event.

Can You Sell!!! Modi, the tech guy from CSE 2nd years ”this event was the most fun event that he had ever participated in…”

What’s Next ?, 2:00 PM,  14th Feb 2018

Depicting the cartoon doremon, Mithil, Pankaj and Pavan conducted What’s next??? event. The three musketeers had called each and every person on their contact list and couple of times by mistakenly called their uncle and grandpa inviting them to participate in their event.

There were a group of participants’ crowd that disappeared for this event being conducted on the day of valentines and on the other hand there were set of participants who specially appeared to participate because of the day of love. For the final time and due to less number of participants the literary seminary people were convinced to participate and to our surprise the number of participants on the day of the event were more than the preregistered list.

Participants were free to choose the issue that they wanted to solve. All came up with the real life problems and came up with solutions according to that. In that way they played the role of Nobita and of Doremon.

 

Tech-On, 10:00 AM, 15th Feb 2018- 10:00 AM, 16th Feb 2018

On 15th morning we all gathered at the Abdul Kalam Center for the Tech-On.  First time in the University we were organizing a 24 hr non-stop event.  I had butterflies in my stomach.   I was pleasantly surprised to see the participants coming before time. My seniors were right, when breakfast is part of the agenda, participants are many and are on time!  After the breakfast it took a lot of effort for me and my team to shepherd them to the classroom. But thanks to Madhesh and Dhilip, all of them assembled in the classroom. So officially the 24 hour non-stop technical hackathon was inaugurated by Rama ma’am. After the breakfast, Rama ma’am asked them to go around in the room introducing them to each other. After the registration and distribution of the kits, the groups divided themselves for attending both the workshops which held parallel.

Seeing the mischievous students working on the problem statement and solution reminded me of 3 Idiots movie. All the 11 teams that participated started discussing on the field and the problem that they could work with. All my friends started going around the room to help them choose and asking various questions to the team to make them choose the appropriate area. The students then attended the two Tech Shops – One on Ardiuno Programming and the other on 3 D Printing.

Then I was called by Arun sir that the Yatra team from NEN had arrived. We shared with the team of Vishnu Priya ma’am and Bhoomika ma’am about what all efforts my team had taken for E-WEEK.

Before leaving for lunch the participants submitted the problems that they thought they could solve.

After the lunch, we welcomed Mr. Shyam Shekhar, Startup Mentor. The students presented their idea for 3 minutes. After which Mr. Shekhar gave a talk on who is an entrepreneur and how he works.   After the tea time, the participants were taken to the laboratory to show the available resources for them to make an MVP of their solution. Madhesh and Dhilip helped them to get the materials that they required.

TO motivate and energize the brave participants and the volunteers,  Rama ma’am had arranged for karaoke night.  Why Brave ?  While we had closed the Registration for All, the mosquitoes refused to accept and showed in large numbers !  Odomos, Mosquito Bats were put to good use.  The literary seminary band entertained all of us and woke everybody. After the K-Night, I turned back and was amused to see that the participants were left. Only 1 team was there.   I was shocked !  When I went to inform the others, I saw that the teams were already in the laboratory and had started working.

The five teams that stayed back the whole night chose their favorite spot for working and made a prototype overnight. They were least bothered about the mosquitoes. Gokul was the official Bat Man, who roamed whole night with the mosquito bat. The participants literally slept on floors and benches of the classroom and laboratory to take naps. Before we could wake them, they themselves woke up early morning and assembled in the classroom.

All the coordinators, including Rama maam, Bhuvi Akka, Mathi akka and Mahesh sir were there whole night in the centre.

In the morning after getting freshened up, Rama ma’am was amazed to see that the all the 5 prototypes were ready.

The team named techie-triangle made an app called ISeeYou to digitize India replacing the written method of writing prescriptions in hospitals with the app.

Team V5 from Mechanical department made a smart garbage system which notifies the MCD if it overflows. Using various sensors they have an additional idea of using the same mechanism for setting up in the suitcases that could alarm you if the weight goes more than 15 kgs.

Team Furious4 inspired by the F&F made a car which could stop when it comes across any obstacle. Though this system was available but the team being very new to the engineering life sustained the whole night and prepared the whole setup by themselves without any help of the mentors and coordinators. The spirit that they showed was tremendous.

Team Secret 6 was from MCA department and had come with a solution to break the WiFi password by using ethical hacking. The system can recover and obtain data that are hard to be collected.

Element 5 came up with a solution for lifting the kids who fall into the pits. They say that the movie Aram inspired them to come up with this idea. They used ultrasonic sensors and ropes and a very simplified mechanism with Oxygen mask to lift the kid no matter how much ever the depth of the pit is. In addition to the teams that completed their task, Madhesh had prepared a surveillance camera to be placed under tables. I wonder what it could be used for either for checking the number and types of mosquitoes or for keeping an eye for  who stick bubble gum under the table. 

After the videos were prepared Rama ma’am and Bhuvi Akka had a long conversation regarding whom to select. But all they could see was all the five teams that sustained the entire night and were so determined to come up with an MVP. At the end all the five teams that sustained the mosquito bites, slept on floor and the card boards, who shared a single blanket with 3 mates were taken to the next round seeing the passion, determination that they had to build an MVP. Other criteria were the level of empathy, the value of the product in the market and number of target customers.

So We had 5 WINNERS from the Tech-On !

Reporter : Bhuvana and Gokul

 

Valedictory Session, 16th Feb 2018, 2:00 PM

After a sleepless night, organizing the Awards Program was challenging but the Volunteer team had done an amazing job in filling out Participation, Merit and Excellence Certificates etc.  All of us quickly had to freshen up organize our write ups and show up at the Conference hall for the Valedictory Session. Dr. Arun Kumar presented the report of the E Week activities we had organized.  Then Dr. N.S. Shubhashree presented the E Week report from the I year Block !  Oh Boy !  These juniors had done a fantastic job in involving every student and managing the reporting.  Oops looks like out Juniors are going to outsmart us in every way !

The Chief guest, Mr. K. Vaidyanathan, Director and Founder of APA Engineering Pvt. Ltd. regaled us with his Entrepreneurial Story.  The Entrepreneurial Dream which drove him in his life and the definition of Entrepreneurship which kept changing with every stage of life, kept us all intrigued. 

Then came the time for the Audience – Prize Distribution.  All the winners were appreciated.  The Pitch Camp and Tech-On Winners were saluted.

The Valedictory also saw the Beginning of another Venture from the Faculty of Computer Applications. They gave a dance performance and will be launching their Studio soon. Thanks E Week !

Sindhuja Mam from Faculty of Computer Applications gave the Vote of Thanks.

The Entrepreneurial Journey Continues

As the E Week came to an end, there was a feeling of relief.  But we knew this was just the beginning of a new journey.  We have the accounts to settle. Some more bills to pay.  The last 2 weeks had seen a lot of emotion.  Happiness when something went well. Dismay, anger when things were sometimes not the way we wanted.  But together we managed to surmount it.  The bond of friendship with my fellow volunteers and the participants is stronger now.  We are looking forward to the trip to New Delhi where the networking will be larger !  Our Arizon T-shirt with Imagine Innovate Incubate has to be cleaned for the Delhi trip !

I know that these are the students who will come together and take the Arizon E Cell to the next level.  I am sure that there will be 15 projects that will be incubated in the NewGen IEDC and we will launch more Job Creators into the World.