The Economic Times (National)
November 17, 2003
Candice Zachariahs

Networks are fabled things: they can be friends, guides, financers…frankly anything. The NEN hopes they’ll be all this and more to a new generation of entrepreneurs

Over a year ago, the Wadhwani Foundation launched a search for five institutions with the vision and enthusiasm to form the backbone of a network that would work for a lofty? yet achievable goal: to help aspiring entrepreneurs build ‘high-growth’ enterprises. Last week, the Birla Institute of Technology and Science, Pilani; Indian Institute of Management Ahmedabad; Indian Institute of Technology Bombay; Institute of Bioinformatics and Applied Biotechnology, Bangalore; and S P Jain Institute of Management were selected from 17 semi-finalists to act as the founding members of the National Entrepreneurship Network (NEN). These will join the original center set up at the Indian School of Business (ISB).

NEN works on the premise that to be successful, new entrepreneurs need high-quality support: knowledge, skills, role models, mentoring and contacts. “Irrespective of the field you work in, there are some basic things that an entrepreneurs needs like knowledge of accounting, capital structures, technical understanding (if you work on a technology product), the ability to identify a value proposition, to sell, to identify and manage rise, to build networks…All these can be practiced in a safe environment through games and case studies,” says Laura Parkin, executive director, Wadhwani Foundation.

Each of NEN’s founding members will work separately and together to prepare a range of activities that build this supportive environment. For the initial year, each center will receive a planning grant of about $40,000; and based on the strength of their plans they will be eligible for a further $1m. The centers will perform research in entrepreneurship, and offer courses, skill building exercises, networking activities, mentorship and company-starting help to aspiring entrepreneurs. In five-10 years NEN hopes to expand the network to include over 50 institutions plus affiliates centers across India. “This will bring different players on to a common platform…propagating and promoting the culture of entrepreneurship,’ says S Venkateswaran, director BITS, Pilani.

The five were selected by a jury that included Rob Chernow, Sr VP, Kauffman Foundation; Naina Lal Kidwai of HSBC; Kiran Mazumdar-Shaw of Biocon; Sunil Mittal of Bharti Enterprises; Mphasis’ Jerry Rao; Harsh Mariwala of Marico Industries; Howard Stevenson of Harvard Business School; and Romesh Wadhwani of Symphony Technology. Each center is already active in the field of enterprise: IIMA, for instance already works in the area of technology driven innovation and enterprise formation through the Center for Innovation, Incubation and Entrepreneurship (CIIE). “The center aspires to be known as an innovator in the process of incubation,” explains Bakul Dholakia, Director IIMA. Now, the network will allow its founders the opportunity to leverage each others strengths and disseminate these to a wider audience than they currently have access to. “Each founding member brings in complimentary strengths, something that we can gain by sharing and working together,” says Anand Patwardhan, head IIT School of Management. “We’d like to see what we do internally, being done more widely with a wider impact in the outside world.”

Five years ago this would not have been possible. “The initiative is very timely,” says Gayatri Saberwal, of IBAB Bangalore. Today, an expanding economy, supportive policy, a successful Diaspora and local entrepreneurial heros have collaborated to create and environment where people can move beyond the narrow range of alternatives they once had. Institutes are seeing a mature and sustainable interest in enterprise not just for 20-something undergrads (made popular during the dotcom era), but also from post grads, PhD students and faculty. “We have a large captive audience of over 10,000 students. So many of them get conventional engineering degrees or study in areas like physics, chemistry or management. We want to help these people look at entrepreneurship as a real alternative,” says M L Shrikant, dean, S P Jain Institute of Management.

It’s not like NEN’s founders are tying to make entrepreneurs of us all. Far from it. What they hope to do is create awareness of an opportunity that’s for long been considered community centric or only for risk-takers. “If it’s a new firm we call it entrepreneurship. But I don’t think it’s an exclusive set,” says Dr Shrikant. “In a poor country like ours, trying to find ways to make new products, serving new markets…that’s entrepreneurship too.”