The event kicked off with Professor Veeravalli of Great Lakes briefing media persons on the concept of EDF and by giving a brief overview of the India study trip organized by GSU. The podium was then handed over to Prof.Jim Beach, who initially had the audience in splits with his humorous real life anecdotes. Jim Beach, an experienced entrepreneur himself and now into academics started his first venture with just $2,000, that too on credit and was successful in generating a revenue of $56,000 within the first year of operation. He has to his credit the successful establishment of about 6-7 such ventures in a span of 5-6 years, each started with a capital investment of less than $10,000.He was the pioneer in starting Summer Camps for children in the U.K. His mantra for success as an entrepreneur is “Low Risk combined with Low Start-up Capital”. To quote Jim,”Entrepreneurs LOVE what they do”. He downplayed the importance of creativity in starting a new venture and stated that even stealing ideas works effectively, if you can do it better.
This was followed by Prof. Veeravalli addressing the audience and giving an overview of the Course Outline and activities of EDF followed by a brief Q&A; session with the GSU team. He quoted Friedrich Nietzsche,”This is my way, where is yours” thus emphasizing that every successful entrepreneur has a different way of doing business and has to find it on his own.
Joi Faisan of GSU, who has majored in Economics, addressed the gathering on behalf of her team. She gave an overview of the various academic programs in Management being held at GSU and stressed on the advantage of Practical Business Experience over classroom teaching sessions. She gave a snapshot of their visit to India.
This was followed by Presentations from the EDF members, Abhishek Rai and Akash Vaze of Great Lakes. A brief about the EDF activities was given alongwith the plans and ideas for the forthcoming year. Rahul Tandon then gave the next presentation regarding the successful Indian entrepreneur stories and the present scenario for entrepreneurship development in India. Ashok Bannerjee, who has had rich hands on experience in entrepreneurship before joining Great Lakes, shared his experiences of doing business in India.
The evening ended with a vote of thanks by Great Laker Rishikesh Sinha and GSU student Scott Turner. To summarize, it was a very enriching experience for all budding entrepreneurs of GSU as well as Great Lakes.