“ On my own I will just create, and if it works, it works and if doesn’t, I’ll create something else ” (Ophrah Winfrey)
The quote aptly sums up the raison d'etre of our belief that entrepreneurship is not a choice of an alternative career but a way of thinking and creating a difference for larger good. This guides us, embolden us, and makes us to work with new generation of IMTians in harnessing the potential of their idea for larger good. It invites you to take a journey like no other. As one of our current batch student, Saptarshi, reflected “With loads of fun and learning … the entrepreneurship courses at IMT are must take for exciting future’. This captures why so many past IMTians have undertaken a journey on entrepreneurial path and created lasting institutions. At IMT entrepreneurship represents core vision that transcends in to our program architecture.
The knowledge and skills necessary in entrepreneurial journey are in-built in our design of courses. We offer four distinct courses during the two-year program, building on different pedagogical philosophy. Two courses i.e. Design Thinking and Entrepreneurship Management are basic courses which are experientially enriching and workshop based course. The Design Thinking course drives students to resolve a problem creatively and propose a prototype model that can potentially turn into solution. Entrepreneurship Workshop is a complete foundation course after design thinking course that simulates life of potential start-up. Built over two terms in the first year, these courses propel students to ideate, design, and come up with business model of potential start-up idea. The testimony of these courses came from students those who took these courses.
Abhishek Gupta (Batch 2022) reflected that “ courses helped me to get an understanding towards how various stages of start-ups work ”. Another student Bhanu Teja Reddy from same batch supported it by extending that “ combining own idea with the learning from the course makes it easier to arrive at viable business plan for successful start-up ”. In the workshop courses, students get to develop a comprehensive and pragmatic perspective about entrepreneuring which is very important. Ankur Joshi, a Bangalore based fintech entrepreneur who judged student ideas on pitch day, said “ such courses reduce chances of failure as students gets to experiment while being in institution itself, and being mentored by seasoned entrepreneurs and faculties ”. Last year workshop hosted more than twenty entrepreneurs of repute during the program.
During the second year of the program, we offer two more elective courses. One is simulation based course titled as “Managing Start-Up Growth” which is hugely popular in second year students. The popularity of this simulation based course provides support to our belief that entrepreneuring is not only a course but a way of life when it comes to solving a problem profitably in IMT! Finally, we complement these courses with another course around Social Entrepreneurship. Given our national and contextual challenges, some of the problems require a different approach to organizing and this course just affirms our mission that motivates us to imprint shades of entrepreneuring among the students.
We are very happy to note that our students have significant progress even in a short span of time. Joel Joseph who ideated a successful venture last year is now ready to transform his vision into a reality. He has also secured support from the state government. We also connect students to the in-house incubator facility for further mentoring. The support of IMT’s incubator facility is critical to our plans for nurturing ideas of future business leaders.
Our alumni provide another guiding pillar in our quest to nurture entrepreneurial minds while being in campus. Start-Ups such as Buddy4Study, Pharmaeasy, and Millagrow are some of the leading ventures of our time that are founded by IMTians. As legacy of these leading entrepreneurial ventures are increasing their foot print, we are now ready to host new bunch of future visionaries whose ideas may bring successful transformation.
Success stories of inspiring IMT Entrepreneurs:
Ashutosh Burnwal- Co-founder Buddy4Study.com (PGDM -2012)
Popularly known as “Scholarship man of India”, Ashutosh founded Buddy4Study in the year 2011 when he was a first year Marketing student of IMT Ghaziabad. Ashutosh’s vision for Buddy4Study is to empower 1 crore students with scholarships. Today, it is India’s largest scholarship platform serving more than 40 lakh students & having 1 lakh scholars as beneficiaries.
Dharmil Sheth- Co-founder PharmEasy (PGDM Batch -2013)
Awarded Forbes 30 under 30 in 2017 and Forbes 40 under 40 in 2019
It was during one of my college projects that I delved into the shortcomings of the medical supply system in India and how numerous people are deprived of life saving medicines. It was our steely determination to do good and our refusal to give up that has made our brainchild PharmEasy the largest online pharmacy in the country today.
Prof. Vinayak Ram Tripathi
Assistant Professor- Strategy, Innovation and Entrepreneurship, IMT Ghaziabad
