IMI Bhubaneswar Students – A Move from Job Seekers towards becoming Job Providers

Devesh Baid (Chairperson – E-Cell and Incubation Foundation.)

Rahul Gupta Choudhury (Dean-Placements)

Dear Students,

We think the timing of this article is apt as final and summer placements are going on in full swing on campus. Each one of you are busy preparing your CV, taking mock interviews, and participating in selection process of companies. We also take this opportunity to congratulate families of students who have been selected and wish best of luck to those who are awaiting their selection. But more importantly we want you all to ponder on the choices you are making.

As you are aware “Startups and Unicorns” are buzz words today around globe. Now we see entrepreneurs as problem solvers using new ideas and technology. They are creating value and wealth for themselves as well as for society at large. Your institute is continuously making efforts to promote entrepreneurship / startups culture. It has taken numerous steps in this direction. E-Cell was established in 2014 and is recognized by Startup Odisha. Cell actively works in collaboration with bodies like Indian Chamber of Commerce, Entrepreneurship Development Institute of India, Institute of Entrepreneurship Development Odisha, National Innovation Foundation, National Entrepreneurship Network etc. to name a few. It organizes numerous activities such as boot camps. Young CEO talks, entrepreneurship programs etc. to create awareness about entrepreneurship as a career choice. You have been successfully managing your own small cafe – Central Perk – since institute first batch in 2011. Those students who have been actively engaged in running this outlet gained enormous understanding of managing small businesses and shared experience that they benefited from this learning a lot later in their career.

To strengthen the understanding of starting and running successful ventures, IMI offers courses in Entrepreneurship, Innovation, Design Thinking etc.

These courses are based on current research in this field. Based on learnings from these courses and activities of E-Cell, students may opt to takes summer internship on their own to test their problem statement and ideas by conducting market research, competitors’ analysis etc. Once they validate their idea, they take step to incorporate a company, develop prototype, pitch to investors etc. as a part of their dissertation project. In this entire process, they are guided by faculty and industry mentor. Since last two years many students have taken entrepreneurship project as their dissertation topics relating to Milk Industry, Crowdfunding Platform, Restaurant, Dal Mill, Online Laundry Portal, etc. However, most of these efforts and projects could not see light of the day as it got neglected due to short term lucrative job offers. However, we have seen that those who embarked on this journey succeeded and came back to campus in short span to recruit juniors for various positions in their growing organizations. Also, current trend is seen that after working for few years for companies, some of the alumni’s have decided to take up this journey of entrepreneurship. They are connecting back with us to join IMI Incubation Foundation.

IMI Incubation Foundation is supporting startups across India both in physical and virtual manner. Those students who take up their SIP and dissertation based on entrepreneurship may join for a year or two and further explore setting up their venture and try for venture funding. IMI Incubation Foundation assist in all manner to make the venture successful.

The fear of failure is meaningless. Today failure is considered as an asset. An important learning which is necessary to make other projects successful. The kind of learning which entrepreneurship experience provides is more varied and in-depth then working on a monotonous job in a so called big, reputed organization. If you fail, you will still get a good job but if you succeed you will create a history. Institute will stand by you and help you in all ways possible.

We will request you all and your family members to embark on this journey. Yes, entrepreneurship is about risk taking but calculated risk taking. Risk of loss of job is with corporates also. With your degree and experience you will always make good.