The Financial Express (National)
April 2, 2003
Veeshal Bakshi

BottomLine: Top educational institutions in race to bag Wadhwani programme

Nearly 250 top educational institutions from the field of business management, engineering, hotel management and fashion and design will vie to be selected as the top five where an entrepreneurship development programme being funded by US-based IT entrepreneur Romesh Wadhwani will be set up.

The high profile panel of 7 judges includes HSBC India vice-chairman and managing director Naina Lal Kidwai, Bharti Enterprises chairman Sunil Mittal, Harsh Mariwala of Marico Industries, Kiran Mazumdar-Shaw of Biocon India, Jerry Rao of Mphasis, Howard Stevenson of Harvard University and Mr. Wadhwani himself. The deliberations will be completed by June 2003 and the winners will be announced on July 1 so that the funding can be in place by the beginning of the next academic year.

Migrating to US four decades ago after completing his graduation from the Indian Institute of Technology (IIT) Mumbai, Mr. Wadhwani did his MS and PhD from Carnegie Mellon University and went on to set up three successful software companies. His third company Aspect Development was sold to i2 Technologies. His forth venture is Symphony Technology Group.

“I’m a first generation entrepreneur. To succeed as an entrepreneur, I had to come to the US. The purpose of national entrepreneurship network (NEN) is to make it possible for millions of Indians like to me start and build large and successful businesses in India, businesses that create jobs for tens of millions of professional workers,” says the serial entrepreneur.

Before launching the NEN programme, the Wadhwani Foundation had given $1.5 million for setting up a center of entrepreneurial development at the prestigious Indian School of Business, Hyderabad. In 2001, the foundation funded and established the Wadhwani Electronics Laboratory at IIT, Mumbai, which is now used by 800 students every year.

The NEN competition is part of Wadhwani Foundation’s programme to establish a National Entrepreneurship Network in India. The aim is to develop leading programmes in entrepreneurship and leverage a common curriculum, research framework, and resources for this purpose.

The five winners of the competition will receive $10,000 to $50,000 (Rs. 4.80 lakh to Rs. 24 lakh) to be used for development of a plan for a full-scale entrepreneurial development center after which each institution will be eligible for further funding of $250,000 to $1 million (Rs. 1.20 crore to Rs. 4.80 crore) from the Wadhwani Foundation.

The second round of funding will be done to support the development of full-scale entrepreneurial development centers. The foundation would expect the institutions to raise matching funds.

“India has the raw entrepreneurship potential to make it one of the world’s fastest growing economies, helping to accelerate economic development and create millions of professional jobs in all industries and regions, not just information technology. However, to unleash this potential, India needs to actively encourage, mentor and support its first generation entrepreneurs, to provide them with the knowledge they need to start and build successful businesses and to remove institutional obstacles to their success,” he adds.

NEN is targeted to inspire, educate and support new entrepreneurs. Each center will eventually offer courses, skill-building exercises, networking activities, and mentorship to aspiring entrepreneurs. The foundation plans to develop a network of 100 centers over the next five years.

The backbone of NEN will eventually comprise 5-10 National Centers for Entrepreneurship, each part of a leading academic institution. Each of the national centers will act as a hub of activities for 10-plus regional centers located in other institutions around them. Says Wadhawani Foundation’s US-based executive director Laura Parkin, “Successful entrepreneurs improve not only their own lives, but often create wealth for their entire communities. We are hoping that the entrepreneurial development centers of NEN will encourage more individuals to choose entrepreneurship.”