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IEPC 2010, UK
At the second International Enterprise Promotion Convention in Harrogate, UK on 8-10 November 2010 I found the technical content and the networking opportunities worth my journey to Harrogate.
There were a total of over 450 registered delegates over the three days, including sponsors, supporters, speakers and exhibitors. Delegates came from 30 different countries.
In total there were over 120 technical presentations on best practice and innovation in the creation and support of small businesses world-wide. You will soon be able to see almost all of the presentations via their website: www.enterprisepromotion.org/presentations You can search for a named speaker or a topic and then click on the title of the paper to see the summary, as published in the Convention Handbook. Then click on the download button on the right hand side of the page to see the PowerPoint Presentation where available.
About six delegates attended from India and three of them presented papers in the various sessions.
I was fortunate to present a Key paper in the Plenary B session on 9 Nov. on the subject of :
Entrepreneurship Education, Policy and Practice: India Government and NGO Cooperation.
Kashmira Wagh was a co-presenter. She handled the operational aspects of the electronic presentation and this made the Plenary presentation a good success.
The Plenary paper briefly traced the path of Entrepreneurship Development in India.The efforts of DEIS , an NGO ,began way back in 1992 through programs on Radio/TV. Paper brought forth the Employment/Unemployment scenario in India and the dynamics of the current Educational systems. The paper then dwelt on the typical Indian ethos of holistic human development , HHD. It briefly touched upon DEIS's international research and help got from Durham Business School, UK; Enterprise NZ trust and others. Analysis of Brain Functions as the basis of designing a curriculum was also presented . The role of Government bodies like the Small Industries Development Bank of India, Department of Science & Technology, DST to support and encourage new experiments in pedagogy of EE were highlighted . Use of ICT for initial awareness creation about Entrepreneurship Education was also expounded.
The future potential work with MERC, Pune and Bharti Learning Delhi was briefly mentioned.
On 9th Nov evening , I was one of the select 32 delegates invited to attend the very exclusive dinner of Awardees of Queens Award for Enterprise Promotion (QAEP). This could be equivalent of our Arjuna Awards in sports or Padmashris .
So it was a very distinguished gathering. I felt honoured to be invited as perhaps the only outsider.
Interestingly after dinner, the QAEP awardees took up a serious discussion on a job given to them by Lord Young, an MP of British Parliament, I presume . Apparently Lord Young is incharge of preparing a bill , or what they may have, for the Parliament for a UK 1.5 bn GBP ( about Rs.10,500 Crores) for small business promotion and development in UK .He has to present it in Feb 2011.
I could not contribute to the discussions as I had no idea about UK development infrastructure, but I got a ring-side view of how such important papers are prepared. While the participants were all very forthright and even self critical of how the money was to spent, which organisations to be involved, which Missions to be undertaken, I was impressed by the fact that they all had a cool confidence that the entire amount will reach the last beneficiary. Coming from a good number of QAEP awardees this was credible.
The dinner understandably ended with a toast to the QUEEN Elizabeth of England.
ANNOUNCEMENT OF WINNERS OF BUSINESS PLAN COMPETITION OF UDYOG SADHANA-NAVI VATCHAL, USNV
1. INTRODUCTION TO UDYOG SADHANA-NAVI VATCHAL, USNV
Development Education (International) Society, DEIS Pune, India (under its Enterprise Education projects supported by CORDAID, DST, SIDBI,BOM, MSETI, MCED, MHRD and others) was pleased to announce “BUSINESS PLAN COMPETITION” for audience and students of UDYOG SADHANA-NAVI VATCHAL , a series of 26 weekly episodes TV programmes running since 20th July 2008 on DD Sahyadri Channel, every Sunday, 10:00 am.
By now 24 episodes out of 26 are completed. Some 45 students from 10 schools in Maharashtra participated in the programme production in the studios. Most of the lessons were taught by Dr. Pradeep Wagh and 26 experts shared their wisdom and experience through the programmes.
2. AUDIENCE RESPONSE
The programmes are linked to an interactive web-portal
www.enterprise-education.in
where the audience can solve the worksheets of the lessons taught during the telecast.
DEIS is happy to announce that some 350+ youth from all over Maharashtra registered on the web-portal and followed the programmes.
Apart from this some 250+ audience members , largely from rural areas called up DEIS on telephone and expressed their motivation to seek self-entrepreneurship as an alternative career.
3. ANNOUNCEMENT OF BUSINESS PLAN COMPETITION, BPC
The programme has now reached an important phase. Most of the basic lessons of Enterprise Education have been completed. An important announcement was made through newspapers and TV from mid Nov 2008. This announcement was of a Business Plan Competition for viewers and students at large. DEIS thanks media for their support in making the announcements. .
4. BPC Response
Some 35 plans were received in response. The completed plans were submitted online on the programme website or sent by email or posted. The plans are characterized by a a sense of commitment, clarity of ideas, and a basic understanding of the components as gathered by the audience from the USNV TV programmes viz. :
1. What is the IDEA behind your product/ service?
2. Marketing Plan
3. Design Plan
4. Production Plan
5. Finance Plan
6. Other points
Responses are spread from the moderately educated young in rural areas to the highly educated urbane youth, all largely in the age group of 18 yrs to 35 yrs. The programme has bridged the gap of knowledge about Enterprise at all levels of the society irrespective of their geographic location, education or age. Interestingly more respondents are females than males, an indication that there is a rising consciousness among womenfolk to take enterprising initiatives.
5. The winners
DEIS is now pleased to announce that six winners have been chosen.
Each of the winners is being given a CERTIFICATE and a Rs. 1500/- scholarship to attend an Entrepreneurship Development Programme (EDP) of their choice at Maharashtra Center for Entrepreneurship Development, MCED in their own District.
These scholarships are sponsored by Compulink, an innovative software product company headquartered in Pune.
The winners have presented their plans on TV camera and their presentations will be telecast on Sunday 18 January 2009, 10 am on DD Sahyadri in the next episode of UDYOG SADHANA-NAVI VATCHAL.
6. CONCLUSION
In conclusion this USNV and BPC has provided an interesting pointer that mass-media of TV/newspapers can serve a good developmental purpose of entrepreneurising the common society.
UDYOG SADHANA-NAVI VATCHAL, USNV
TV programmes running since 20th July 2008 on
DD Sahyadri Channel,
“BUSINESS PLAN COMPETITION”
List of winners
Included in the telecast proposed on Sunday 25th January'09, 10 am
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