IIT-Kharagpur students Priyanka Ranjan and Harshav Raj. Pictures by Nagendra Kumar Singh

The entrepreneurship cell (e-cell) of Indian Institute of Technology (IIT)-Kharagpur will conduct an entrepreneurship awareness drive at IIT-Patna on Saturday.

The event would be graced by seasoned entrepreneurs Rahul Narvekar, founder CEO, NDTV Ethnic Retail Ltd, and Abhishek Chakraborty, investor founder and CEO of Whiz Mantra.

The two entrepreneurs would enlighten the students and participants about starting a successful enterprise followed by a workshop by IBM, “From idea to App; Sizzling Fast with IBM Bluemix”.

Harshav Raj, a geophysics student at IIT-Kharagpur and one of the members of e-cell, said the entrepreneurship awareness drive is one of the major flagship events, the “other global entrepreneurship summit” organised by IIT-Kharagpur.

Raj said: “The drive consists of a series of guest lectures and workshops in 20 cities in 20 days in October and we have chosen IIT-Patna this year.”

Last year, the event was held at BIT-Patna. Each city or institution hosts an entrepreneurship awareness camp where eminent entrepreneurs and industry leaders counsel students about the pros and cons of entrepreneurship as a career and how it differs from the usual job culture that has existed till now.

Priyanka Ranjan, another IIT Kharagpur student, said: “The basic idea behind the drive is to create awareness about taking up entrepreneurship as a career by students.”

The entrepreneurship awareness drive of IIT-Kharagpur has come a long way since its inception six years ago. It has seen the number of cities growing from 10 to 20. Some of the distinguished guests who have stood on the dais of the entrepreneurship awareness drive include Biocon founder Kiran Mazumdar-Shaw, Redbus CEO Phanindra Sama, HCL Technologies co-founder Arjun Malhotra, Sammaan Foundation founder Irrfan Alam and Teach for India Foundation founder Shaheen Mistry.

The drive also coincides with the launch of an international business model competition: Empresario.

Empresario is the annual business model competition where ideas in all fields ranging from products and service to product design get equal opportunity to win prizes and incubation money to the tune of Rs 2.5 crore. This year, the entrepreneurship cell of IIT-Kharagpur, Empresario 2015, is with association with International Business Model Competition.