The Chennai chapter of global entrepreneurship driving organisation The Indus Entrepreneurs (TiE) will focus on encouraging business ideation and the spirit of enterprise in non-IT sectors, Lakshmi Narayanan, vice chairman of Cognizant Technologies and the new TiE Chennai president said on Tuesday.
Addressing a press meet after taking over reins from outgoing president R. Ramaraj, Mr. Narayanan said one of the first tasks would be to dispel the notion about the TiE, which was founded in Silicon Valley, being an organisation focused on fostering entrepreneurship in the IT/BPO sectors.
Membership expansion and taking it (TiE) beyond the IT and BPO sectors will be a key area of focus apart from reinforcing the mentoring mechanism, Mr. Narayanan said.
Some of the potentially exciting areas where investments could be made are renewable energy, auto components and electronics.
TiE Chennai, one of the best performing chapters of the global organisation with 55 branches, has considerable in-house mentoring expertise which is readily available for anyone with a strong business idea, Mr. Narayanan said. The free flow of funds to start up, sustain or scale up an enterprise is no longer the constraint; getting good ideas is. “TiE Chennai will strive to facilitate the free flow of ideas,” he said.
Mr. Ramaraj said the TiE Chennai had over the last five years seen significant growth in membership, number of events and initiatives apart from achieving higher visibility. TiECON Chennai, the marquee entrepreneurship networking event, was also growing in strength, he said.
The TiE is also set to open a chapter in Coimbatore.
G.S.K. Velu, Managing Director, Trivitron, medical diagnostics company spoke.
