Nurturing "Smart" Entrepreneurship Date:   Friday , November 21, 2014 With start-up companies becoming an increasing phenomenon and the government ensuring their growth through allocation of a Rs 100 billion fund, Indian markets today witness a noticeable trend of stakeholders ready to invest in the tech Start-up ecosystem. Celebrating this spirit of entrepreneurship, IBM is committed to encourage budding entrepreneurs the country, IBM offers private mentor days as well as public networking opportunities through its Global Entrepreneur events. IBM SmartCamps, a global entrepreneurship event is exclusively aimed at identifying early stage entrepreneurs who are developing business ventures that align with our global strategies. Through this, we aim to showcase a new breed of enterprisers whose innovation, technology and business models optimise to tackle world\'s most pressing issues- healthcare, water management and efficient energy resources. With a faster Go to Market strategy, SmartCamps is allowing entrepreneurs to take advantage of learning opportunities, while garnering insights from thought leaders and networking with investment firms, key academia as well as industry/technology experts along with a direct route to seed & venture capital. Our mentoring does not limit to just providing the right foundation but also equipping them with the right strategies. The IBM Innovation Centre in Bangalore offers the resources which start-ups require including technical expertise, marketing and sales facilities and skills, with IBM hardware and software. To site a few examples, we are closely working with Algo Engines, a wind turbine portfolio management and performance improvement solution. Through,integration of IBM\'s Informix Time Series Database and IBM\'s SPSS for forecasting and predictive maintenance of Wind Turbines,they are garnering real time data coming from the Wind Turbines. Globals, an enterprise offering world-class quality solutions on Web and Cloud is using IBM\'sCognos BI (our Business Intelligence and Analytics tools) to enable collaboration between students, teachers and parents, while streamlining the business processes for schools such as Fees Automation, Payroll, Admissions, besides content creationand knowledge management for teachers. Our belief is that competitive advantage will be created through data and analytics. Through shaping business models by Cloud, and allowing individual engagement to be powered by mobile and social technologies- IBM is equippingyoung enterprisersand start-ups with a brighter future. Furthermore, our investment to the start- up ecosystem is also fostered through the following: •Roadshows to create Awareness on GEP among startups. •Partnerships with startup Ecosystem Community Leaders - HeadStart, TiE, YourStory, NextBigWhat •Bluemix Sessions in Incubation Centers in India along with Road shows on Bluemix for the Startup Community, whileorganizing the first Bluemix Hackathon for startups in India. •MOUs with Incubation Centers - Amity Incubation Center, IIT Kanpur Incubation Center, Technopark Trivandrum Incubation Center, Turning Ideas Our pursuit to equip these young enterprises does not end here. We further share collaboration with the Start-up Village in Kochi to not just encourage budding entrepreneurs, butalso enhance their IT skills. In a memorandum signed, IBM promises to equip engineering students and young professionals with the necessary knowledge and skills to better position them in the IT markets. While we are helping students in the Start-up Village to attain industry-ready skills through our Career Education and Academic Initiative programme, our contribution also extends to providing relevant software, free of cost , used for training and enablement purposes for students and faculty members of various engineering colleges in the State. IBM has always empowered the next generation to vouch for the immense capabilities their ideas and start-ups hold. With our initiatives, we look forward to keep working with the vast pool of talent, remodelling their ideas and empowering them to make their businesses an actuality.