Entrepreneurial pulse reverberates @ TiECon Chennai
Who says entrepreneurship is not thriving in India? From aspirers to beginners to veterans, TiECon Chennai 2008 was packed with about 600 entrepreneurs. Chief Minister of Tamil Nadu M. Karunanidhi exhorted entrepreneurs to “innovate for the common man.” Captain G.R.Gopinathan, Executive Chairman, Deccan Aviation and K.B Chandrasekar, CEO and Chairman, Jamcracker, humbly shared their personal experiences on ‘the process of “making of an entrepreneur” and how their initiatives have helped in improving the life of common man.

The remark by Ganesh K, Founder and CEO, Tutor Vista that about 77 percent of the companies the venture capitalists fund are technology companies, there was a heated debate on why VCs were not looking beyond technology companies. Sudhir Sethi, Chairman and Managing Director, IDG Ventures India and Mahesh Murthy, Partner, SeedFundo seemed to agree that though VCs are ready to invest in non-technology companies, they are not seeing any forthcoming innovative ideas, Ganesh noted that most VCs in India imitate a model followed in the West, which does not work here and asserted that the VCs should adopt a model that work in the Indian market.

Many entrepreneurs utilized the opportunity to present their business plans to VCs. Some like Sreenivas Pappula, President of Ventech Solutions got nostalgic and remembered attending the first Silcon Valley TiECon in 1992.

Techno-managers converge @ IIM Bangalore
It was their annual meet. Unlike the usual ones, there was no music or dance. From presentation of case studies to Corporate IT Quiz to brainstorming session on innovation, over 200 programmers-turned-managers gathered on a Sunday afternoon to exchange notes with each other in their annual meet. aWorking IT professionals who firmly believe that a management degree is a must to climb the corporate ladder often do not want to quit work and go back to school. It is here that courses such as IIM Bangalore’s Post Graduate Software Engineering Management help. With classes conducted over the weekends, the PGSEM is apt for mid-career IT professionals. “The PGSEM course has helped us progress to roles of greater managerial responsibility,” noted almost everyone present at the meet. There were some wannabe entrepreneurs who saw this course as providing them the impetus for launching their own ventures.