The Times of India (Ahmedabad)
November 20, 2003
Raja Bose

In another instance of the diaspora of successful entrepreneurs eager to give back to their country, a foundation launched by a US-based IT entrepreneur has partnered with the Indian Institute of Management, Ahmedabad (IIM-A), and four other top institutes, to scout, mentor and help incubate talent in India to create entrepreneurs.

The Wadhwani Foundation, a not-for-profit organization founded by IT entrepreneur Romesh Wadhwani, plans a talent scouting mission in India with the help of premier academic institutions with the aim that entrepreneurs can create wealth, bring valuable new products and services to market, or traditional products to new markets, and in the process create new jobs.

This will be done under the recently launched National Entrepreneurship Network (NEN).

The partners include Birla Institute of Technology and Science (BITS), Pilani, IIT Bombay, Institute of Bioinformatics and Applied Biotechnology, Bangalore and the S P Jain Institute of Management and Research, Mumbai.

“These institutes will form the NEN’s core group. They will get a planning grant of $40,000 each and based on their blueprint a further grant of $1 million. Within five years we plan to have 50 institutions in the network that will be funded to develop courses, research and other activity to inspire people to take the path of entrepreneurship,” says foundation executive director Laura Parkin.

“The foundation employs a dual strategy – it funds not-for-profit efforts to accelerate entrepreneurship in emerging economies and runs the Wadhwani Grant Programme to empower the disadvantaged,” she adds.

“The five founding partners have complementary skills. IIM-A’s core strength lies in research in the area of entrepreneurship. We will carry out an extensive review of literature on entrepreneurship study. A lot needs to be done in the context of India,” says Rakesh Basant of IIM-A’s Center for Innovation, Incubation and Entrepreneurship.

“The process will include mapping of what is available and what needs to be done, case study of venture capitalists and methodologies and then figure out the gaps in entrepreneurship studies,” says Basant.

The IIM-A initiative will include a status paper on research gaps in entrepreneurship studies, research on entrepreneurial finance through case studies and a preliminary review
of alternative models of entrepreneurship.
Programmes like ‘One day with an entrepreneur’ for direct interaction between IIM-A students and entrepreneurs and start-up workshops have been planned.