Mangaluru: The New Age Incubation Network (NAIN) Incubation Centre of St Joseph Engineering College (SJEC), Mangaluru, in association with Karnataka Innovation and Technology Society (KITS), jointly organized a Bootcamp called E-STEP on 22nd August 2019. KITS is a body under the Department of Information Technology (IT), Bio-Technology (BT) and Science & Technology (S&T), Government of Karnataka.
E-STEP is an initiative from Startup Cell Karnataka with a focus to empower students/start-ups in the state towards entrepreneurship. E-STEP focusses on boot camps, mentoring the students and providing specific training which would cover various aspects of entrepreneurship.
The program was inaugurated by the Chief Guests Mr. Abrar Ahmed, Associate-Marketing & Outreach at Startup Karnataka and Mr Vishnu Nagaraj, Founder of Carve Startup Labs and TaGD, who were also the trainers of the program. Rev. Fr Wilfred Prakash D’Souza, Director of SJEC, Rev. Fr Rohith D’Costa & Rev. Fr Alwyn Richard D’Souza, Assistant Directors of SJEC, Dr Rio D’Souza, Principal of SJEC, Dr Purushothama Chippar, College Coordinator of SJEC NAIN Incubation Centre and Mr Yathish Kumar K, Incubation Centre Manager, were also present on the occasion.
Dr. Purushothama Chippar, welcomed the gathering during which he introduced the initiatives of NAIN and presented the significance of the Bootcamp.
Speaking on the occasion, Dr. Rio D’Souza said that Bootcamp is a platform for the students to come together and learn the intricacies of the entire gamut of the startup ecosystem. He mentioned that NAIN has taken the lead in organizing multiple events to assist the budding entrepreneurs in the state. He also touched upon the kind of ideas that emerge out of events like these and wished a fruitful day to all the participants of the Bootcamp.
In his inaugural speech, Mr. Abrar Ahmed spoke about the E-STEP initiative and said that such Bootcamps are being held at 30 NAIN institutions in the state of Karnataka. He also mentioned that the Bootcamp would give an overview of the current startup system besides acting as a platform for ideation where teams would work on various ideas based on problems, solutions, competitors, and customers. He said that SJEC has exceeded expectations in terms of the number of participants and congratulated the organizers for hosting the event.
Mr. Akash Lobo from Final Year Mechanical Engineering proposed the vote of thanks who was also the host during the inaugural.
The inaugural was followed by several sessions that included ideation, product design, and marketing, product development, sales and customer engagement, mentor talk by a local entrepreneur, discussion on the business model, creation of a pitch deck, mock pitch, etc.
As a part of mentor talk by a local entrepreneur, Ms Sulaj Kini, Partner of Bell Paints, Mangaluru, interacted with the participants and shared her entrepreneurial experiences.
In all, 140 students registered and took an active part in this daylong event.
