Jan 2013 - S.P. Jain Institute of Management and Research

Rainbow colours of innovation
January 27, 2013
Entrepreneurial extravaganza at SPJIMR as
Lock, Stock & Trade completes 10 years
In its 10th year, Lock, Stock & Trade (LST), a simulated
IPO game wherein investors bid for mock shares of
actual startups, was held on January 27, 2013 at
SPJIMR. Fifteen start ups from across the country
participated in the event.
The keynote speaker for the event was Mr. Dheeraj
Gupta, founder of Jumbo King, the chain of hygienic
Vada Pav stores in Mumbai. He narrated the story
behind creating the brand. After his management
degree in 1998 from SIBM, he was considering a
venture of exporting packaged Indian sweets when he
came across 'Behind the Golden Arches', a widely
acclaimed book about the growth story of McDonald's
and how Ray Kroc, its founder, expanded the franchise
model to create the hugely successful fast food chain.
Inspired by it, Dheeraj thought about vada pav as an
obvious choice for extending the model in Mumbai. He
said that often people lose the plot because they strive
for exceptional growth while only steady growth is
sustainable in the long run.
The startups presented their business ideas to an eight
person jury with rich experience across various
verticals like Investment Banking, Emerging Markets,
Capital Markets, Consulting, Retail and ITES. The
event was a platform for the young startups to pitch
their business models to VCs and mentors who had
founded or were associated with venture financing &
mentoring communities like Headstart Network
Foundation, Indian Angels Network, Mumbai Angels,
Ah! Ventures, India Social Fund and National
Entrepreneurship Network (NEN).
In the tough competition, some of the ventures which
stood out were Traffline, a real time traffic monitoring
system; Liqvid, a Noida based e-learning content
development company, AdoRoI, a leading marketing
science company providing TRAI DND compliant Lead
Generation service to marketers for measuring
marketing ROI, EFarm, a 'tech enabled subjiwallah'
connecting farmers and buyers of agri produce and
LocalBanya.com, a Mumbai based online grocery
portal which supplies supermarket products at home.
Some 200 investors, a mix of venture capitalists,
mentors, industry people and students from various
institutes, attended the presentations and made bids
for mock shares of these firms. Smart investment
decisions by Bidhan Kumar Pradhan of SPJIMR made
him the most profitable investor with the highest
portfolio, while LocalBanya.com bagged the award
for highest market capitalisation. The event was
organized by EntreCom'12 in association with NEN.
November 27, 2012
Harvard US- India Initiative Chapter formed
at SPJIMR
Harvard US-India Initiative (HUII), a student-run
organisation that aims to create dialogue between
Indian and American youth to address some of India's
most pressing social, economic, and environmental
issues, has established its Chapter at SPJIMR, Mumbai
on November 27th, 2012. HUII is a student-driven
network that allows US, UK and Indian college and
graduate students to interact, network and most
importantly participate in an "India Conference", which
seeks to make a difference in India's social, economic
and/or political fabric. USA and UK schools such as
Harvard (including HBS), Stanford, Princeton,
Columbia, UC Berkeley Yale, Amherst and London
School of Economics are part of the initiative.
The mission of the HUII is two-fold: to foster initial
interactions and long-term cooperation between youth
from the United States and India and to leverage these
relationships to address some of India's most pressing
social and economic issues. Students collaborate
through "social entrepreneurship" to develop solutions
to social and economic problems. The solutions they
propose have the potential to win funding and be
scaled up for implementation.
The main objectives and deliverables of the chapter
are – organising the annual HUII conference,
organising events that can add value to society and
submitting a project/research report on a social or
NGO theme which benefits the community as a whole.
The executive board of this Chapter comprises four
motivated PGDM first year students: Kanika Ghocha –
President, Dhananjay Bisht – Social Enterprise Chair,
Dattu SRK – Outreach Chair and Diana Sunny –
Conference Chair, who want to ensure that they are
able to ideate and execute initiatives to make a positive
impact to communities in India.
The theme chosen for this year's project is health and
nutrition. The SPJIMR Chapter would like to take an
initiative to create an impact on the poor nourishment
levels in India. They plan to work with some of the
identified NGOs like Centre for Rural Health and
Social Education, Tamil Nadu, Himachal Pradesh
Voluntary Health Association, Central Himalayan
Rural Action Group (CHIRAG), Uttarakhand and
Social Action for Women Empowerment and Rural
Advancement, SAWERA, Punjab, on issues like
community based management of malnutrition,
model village creation for better maternal health and
hygiene, monitoring of maternal and child health and
reproductive child health. As the scope of the study is
spread across the nation, they intend to bring out a
comparative analysis of different regions in terms of
problems faced and best practices involved and
suggest region-specific solutions.
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