B-Gyaan 14

Onyx, the Entrepreneurship Development Cell of The National Institute of

Engineering hosted one of its flagship events, a National level Business plan
presentation competition, B Gyaan 14 , was held on September 27th and 28th,
2014. Onyx is also a member of National Entrepreneurship Network(NEN) was
supported by the Department of Science and Technology (DST) and the
Innovation and Entrepreneurship Development cell at NIE. Students from the
best institutions of the country, hailing from various cities in the south, bringing in
a wide range of business ideas from all sectors had applied. Top 11 finalists who
were shortlisted through a very stringent procedure, got an opportunity to pitch
before an eminent panel comprising of Venture Capitalists, Mentors and
Entrepreneurs, giving a platform for their venture to take a giant leap, and gather
opinions from industry experts.
B-Gyaan 2014 was inaugurated by the chief guest Honorary Secretary of The
National Institute of Engineering S.L.Ramachandra. Being a successful
Entrepreneur himself he conveyed the message to seize the Opportunity and
follow our heart in every decision inspiring all the young minds to carry their goal
towards
entrepreneurship.
Dr.M.V.Achutha
(IEDC
Co-ordinator),
Mr.Sudhir(Director,CTAT), Mr.Rajaram(Director,KBITS) and HODs were also
present at the inauguration.
Followed by the inauguration was a session about Basic of Finance for
Entrepreneurs by Mr. Harish Machiah. By his very good sense of humor and his
brilliant oration, Harish Machiah hooked the interest of all the 150+ students
present in there. The interactive session went on for two hours and was finally
concluded by showing the videos depicting the necessary qualities of a successful
entrepreneur in a very fun way.
After a very small gap for lunch, the students were then taken on a E-Tour to
Oxygen Acres. Oxygen Acres is a Non-Technical venture on dairy products started
by technical people. Here, the students learnt about the journey of the founders
on starting this big venture, problems they faced and how they managed it, about
their delivery system and much more, and also about modern farming techniques
by adopting ancient methods. Students not only enjoyed this wonderful
experience but also savored the freshly prepared dairy products.

Students then returned to attend the startup Expo where all the ventures from
NIE were put on display. Every student visited each individual stall to get to know
about the ventures. Some ventures even offered internship based on some tests
which were later conducted for the interested students. The startup stalls were
also visited by our guest for the E-Talk of the year, Mr.Mukhi Regunathan who
guided them with suggestions to take their ventures to a whole new level.
The Startup Expo event was followed by the most awaited event E-Talk of the
year by a very well know speaker Mr.Mukhi Regunathan, CEO and founder of
Pepper Square. Mukhi is a very enthusiastic person who even after failing for 7
times in his entrepreneurial journey never gave up his dream to be an
entrepreneur. Mukhi told about the life of Entrepreneurs in the real world and
how important it is to innovate to sustain and scale up. He even advised students
to fall in love with their venture every day. Mukhi made the event a very
interactive session even though the crowd was around 250 people. He divided the
crowd into 4 groups People who want to startup, People who want to work for
startups, People who want to work for MNC and People who want to work for the
government. Later he explained the roles of each group in an entrepreneurial
world and connected all these group explaining the journey of an entrepreneur.
The event was then concluded by a Q&A session.
The first day of B-Gyaan didnt end there. There was a surprise flash mob which
was later joined by every student and thus enjoying themselves to the core.
The first day of B-Gyaan-14 was later concluded with announcing the schedule for
the next day. The journey of fun and learning ended, but at every end there lies a
new beginning and there was much to learn and much to experience. This was
just the beginning of something new.
The Second day was the day of the National Level Business Plan Competition
which was judged by an eminent panel consisting of Shivaram Malavalli Chairman and Managing Director of eHealth Technology Business Incubator,
Rakesh Babu -Director of Innomantra Solutions, Sumanth Prabhu-Founder of
Vesto Education Solutions. The selected teams presented their plans in front of
the judging panel. The ideas were diverse and belonged to various sectors.

Some of them were - a social venture to connect the old age homes and the day
care centers, Plan to Solve the major traffic issues in indian cities etc. The first
prize was bagged by Team Paramahamsa from NIE whose plan concentrated on
women safety against rape issue by developing a new device which had various
features to ensure the safety. The runners up prize was bagged by Team Mukth
also from NIE who also concentrated on the same issue but their plan was to
implement wearable device such as bracelets, chains etc consisting of an SOS
service. The mega event concluded by encouraging and inspiring words by the
judges to take forward their business plans and make it a successful venture.
B-Gyaan-14 was finally concluded. It sparked the spirit of Entrepreneurship for
the new crowd while it was a platform to learn more for the rest.