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Central India’s largest entrepreneurship summit – The i5 Summit 2020 began its first online edition on October 02, 2020. The three-day event, jointly organized by IIM Indore and IIT Indore witnessed various events including Speaker Series, Panel Discussion, Entrepreneurship Workshop, Start-up Expo, Pitch Deck Designing & Finance Workshop and Chai Pe Charcha hosting around 1200+ attendees in an online summit.
The inauguration of the summit took place in the presence of Professor Himanshu Rai, Director, IIM Indore. In his keynote address, Professor Rai shared learnings from Mahatma Gandhi, which are important to become a successful entrepreneur. He discussed about the 3 Ps- Purpose, Passion and Perseverance—the ideas which embodied Gandhi and should be every entrepreneur’s key to success.
The keynote speaker for the Speaker Series event was Mr. Kris Gopalakrishnan, Founder and Former CEO of Infosys, Chairman, Alixor Ventures. The event also included esteemed experts like Dr. K. Hariprasad (President, Apollo Hospital) Mr. Rahool Pai Panandiker, (MD & Partner, BCG) Ms. Neha Motwani (Co-Founder & CEO, Fitternity), Mr. Vivek Bajaj (Co-founder, StockEdge) and Mr, Shantanu Deshpande (Founder & CEO, Bombay Shaving Company).
The second day of the Summit saw an engaging Panel Discussion on “The role of diversity and sustainability in the ‘New Normal’ post COVID-19” with eminent panelists like Mr. Sonam Wangchuk, Mr. Girish Ananthanarayanan, Mr. Rajan Singh and Mr. Venkatesh Sarvasiddhi; interacting with IIM Indore’s Director Professor Himanshu Rai and Professor Sneha Thapliyal.
The flagship event GetFunded, which provides a platform to budding entrepreneurs to present their ideas to the venture capitalists, saw unique ideas emerging from various sectors such as agriculture, fashion and Ed-tech from participating startups such as AutoNxt Automation Private Limited, GoFloat Tech, PrepSquare and many others. The investor line-up was adorned with some of the greatest stalwarts in the space such as Mr. Akshay Madan (Sinbex Ventures), Mr. Vikash Sharma (IC1101), Mr. Vikas Sarda (Unitus capital), Mr. Ankur Jain (Hostel Fund), Ms. Srishti Jain (Startup Jalsa), Mr. Vinayak Nath (Venture Catalyst), Mr. Sanjay Enishetty (50k Ventures), Mr. Asutosh Upadhyay (Axilor Ventures), Mr. Rohit Krishna (WEH Ventures), Mr. Anshul Kothari (Campus Fund), Mr. Parneet Soni (Upaya Social Ventures), Mr. Amit Pamnani (Moksha Startup Accelerator) and Mr. Raghubir Sinha (50k Ventures). The first prize was received by AutoNxt, who received a cash prize of Rs. 50,000/- and the Runner-ups were GoFloat, who received Rs. 20,000/-.
The Summit facilitated further with discussion in Chai Pe Charcha as investors engaged in deeper conversation with the participating entrepreneurs. The Start-up Expo was another highlight of the day with around 50 start-ups presenting their ideas through an online platform.
Even in such unprecedented times due to the pandemic, the i5 summit concluded on a high note by giving the budding young managers and entrepreneurs an opportunity to not only interact with the top experts and stalwarts but also share their ideas with them.