As part of the calendar activities prescribed by the Ministry of Education’s Innovation Cell, the Institution’s Innovation Cell of Sahrdaya College of Advanced Studies, Kodakara, decided to conduct a Lecture Series on Innovation and Entrepreneurship during the third week of March, from March 14 to March 18, spanning 5 days via Google Meet (https://meet.google.com/zur-vodh-wxx). The inauguration for the entire lecture session of the week was done by the Principal Dr. Mathew Paul Ukken.
The first session took place on March 14 AND was titled “Session by Successful Entrepreneur / Start-up founder” by Mr. Suraj P Satheesh, the founder of Think Now India, as well as being an NLP trainer and Entrepreneur. Throughout the session, he shared his past experiences of being an entrepreneur and how he had to cross through hurdles and overcome failures to become the successful entrepreneur that he is today. He also talked about the different pre-requisites necessary for a startup as well as the important key features for the same. He was very interactive with the audience as well, starting with direct virtual activities among others. He also highlighted the main features required for a startup – time, people, idea, market strategy and revenue model. He ended the session by sharing his contact details so that the participants of the session can contact him in the future for guidance in their own entrepreneurial endeavors.
The second session took place on March 15 at 7:00 pm, titled “Design Thinking, Critical Thinking, and Innovative Design”, by Mr. Karthik Nagarajan, Associate Professor and Innovation Ambassador, PHCET, Maharashtra. He used a PowerPoint as well as multiple images and videos to interact and connect with the participants of the lecture, with the help of the chat. He highlighted the fact that designs don’t require huge concepts and complex apparatus, because innovativeness is measured rather in its usefulness and effectiveness. He also noted the importance of doing research and pointed out the connection between nature and design thinking, which was shown to the audience through examples. He concluded the session with some videos that put across the main concept discussed in the lecture.
The third session on March 16 at 7:00 pm. was titled “Achieving Problem-Solution Fit and Product-Market Fit.” by Mr. Bhaskar Gupta, Innovation Ambassador from the Ministry of Education Innovation Cell. He explained the three stages of a start-up, going over the main features of customer development. Customer Validation and Customer Creation was also discussed in the lecture. The different kinds of innovations were also mentioned in the lecture. The lecture also featured the importance of analysing the Product-Market fit, citing the failure of 3D to achieve mainstream appeal, due to its inability to be more valuable than the other products that were present in the then market. The session was very informative and filled with examples of multiple products, ideas and concepts.
The fourth session was conducted on March 17 at 8:00 pm., titled “Use of Innovation and Research concepts in the Entrepreneurship Development” by Dr. Sudhakar Umale, the Head and Associate Professor of Sardar Patel College of Engineering, Mumbai. He presented wide variety of topics regarding innovation and research in Entrepreneurship Development. He presented the concepts of Entrepreneurial Traits and the different methods by which one can analyse the success and progressive probability of the reach of an innovative idea or product. He also delved into the definition of innovation and how it can be corresponded with Entrepreneurship, as well as Industrial Innovation. He also presented a five-step process for design thinking and detailed its features. The role of Research and Development as well as the role of Engineers in Entrepreneurship Development was also discussed in the conclusion of the lecture.
The fifth session of the lecture series was on March 18, 2022. The topic of the session was My Story – Session by Successful Innovator by Mr. Ronald Dias, Founder of Softenlabs, Tourbae and SCAS Alumni. The resource person shared his experience in the college, how he used to discuss with his friends, the idea of any startup and how he started his own venture. The participants asked questions regarding the experience of being an entrepreneur. He discussed about the financial aid received and registration of the company.
