Sharpening their skills for the industry

Mount Carmel Degree College held its first ever entrepreneurship fest under the banner of ‘Escapade 2012’ at its campus in the City recently.

The fest, titled ‘A Tribute To Steve Jobs’, had an array of competitions ranging from workshops, panel discussions to competitions that were meant to test the entrepreneurial abilities of the participants.

Most of the events were named after the applications of the iPhone. The events were based on the aspects which an entrepreneur requires like finance (numismatic), human resource (sapiens), marketing (marcus village), strategy (rebuild) and innovation (innovation lab).

There was also a panel discussion on the topic — ‘Futuristic innovation and sustainability’.
The two-day fest had more than 15 colleges from across the country participate in full strength.

Among the colleges that participated were St Joseph’s College of Commerce, SRN Adarsh College, Bishop Cotton Women’s Christian College, Sri Bhagwan Mahavir Jain College of Engineering , MLA College and Bannari Amman Institute of Technology (Tamil Nadu). There were not less than 300 students participating in various events.

‘Innovation Lab’ was an interactive workshop that helped students discover their potential. ‘Mind your business’ required the students to make a b-plan competition and battle it out with potential entrepreneurs. They had to put together an idea for the plan for entrepreneurship and green business. Another event, titled ‘Numismatic’, tested the knowledge of the students. It was meant to test their proficiency in different aspects of finance.

‘Sapiens’ was all about flaunting one’s management capabilities and interpersonal skills. Another event, titled ‘Rebuild’, took the students through an exhilarating journey that tested their strategic abilities. In ‘Marcus Village’, students were supposed to conceive a product and convince people to buy it. “This was the toughest part of the competition. It’s the kind of innovative methods you use to get people to buy the product. It’s great when people pick up your product. It gives you a high,” said Rajeev Shankar, a final year student of Jain College.

The core team, who organised the fest, said they had a great time conceptualising the fest and seeing it through successfully. Srilakshmi R, a student co-ordinator of the fest said, “It was a great learning experience organising this fest. The whole team has put in a lot of hard work and it has exposed us to the real world in a certain sense.”

The participating team from Bannari Ammani College in Tamil Nadu said the fest really tested their skills and they had never got such an exposure before.