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National Entrepreneurship Network (NEN) hosts ‘Youth Entrepreneurship Meet’ for Students, at Chennai

Youth entrepreneurship Meet builds on regional Entrepreneurship Cell (E-Cell) confluence by NEN ~
~ The Meet offered networking & support platform for young aspiring entrepreneurs ~

Chennai, 21 Feb 2014: National Entrepreneurship Network (NEN), the flagship initiative of Wadhwani Foundation organized the first annual ‘Youth Entrepreneurship Meet’ in Chennai today. The programme held at Ethiraj Women’s College has witnessed the participation of passionate aspiring entrepreneurs, entrepreneurship leaders and visionary students from various educational institutes across the city.

The energetic & enthusiastic participants shared their ideas, learnings and best practices to take their campus E-cells and individual entrepreneurial initiatives to the next level. The program offered the participants, access to unique tools & essentials of entrepreneurship from a leading consultant, insights on creating a sustainable start-up eco-system on campus, exposure to the mentoring process, expert advice and a positive space for networking opportunities with peers and key entrepreneurship drivers.

The day’s session also sensitized the participants on the experience of being an entrepreneur, and helped aspiring entrepreneurs to work on a development plan for their E-Cells which includes advocating the benefits of considering entrepreneurship as an alternate career option.

Dr. K. Srikrishna, Executive Director, National Entrepreneurship Network says “Chennai has always been a vibrant space for entrepreneurial activity. When NEN was started, only a handful of colleges or universities in India had any entrepreneurship programme. Today, we have more than 350 active entrepreneurship cells across India and many of the most active ones are in Chennai. The first annual ‘Youth Entrepreneurship Meet’ in Chennai has witnessed an overwhelming response and we are greatly encouraged to pursue more such Youth Entrepreneurship Meets in other cities of India.” ”

E-cells on educational campuses play a major role and are a focal point to inspire the student

community and create a vibrant entrepreneurial eco-system. It aims to unlock students’ latent inventive potential to help in the development of India’s entrepreneurial ecosystem by nurturing entrepreneurship through entrepreneurial education & learning. These E-cells connects students to entrepreneurial resources through various events such as seminars, workshops, webinars, start-up show cases, networking opportunities with industry leaders, mentors, peers, prospects, potential employees, vendors and help sustain the entrepreneurial spirit through educational, inspirational videos and mentoring platforms.

NEN is India’s largest and most dynamic community of new and future high-growth entrepreneurs, with over 70,000 members in 30 cities and 470 top-tier academic institutes in India as partners. It provides support to start-ups and early-stage entrepreneurs through offerings such as High-impact entrepreneurship education, Access to mentors, experts and advanced pedagogy, Fast-track access to incubation, Funding learning tools and materials.

NEN is playing a key role in developing entrepreneurship eco-system in the country by building institutional capacity and inspiring, educating & supporting high potential entrepreneurs to create high-value jobs. After the power packed event the participants expressed the strong desire for similar programmes on a regular basis to keep the spirit of entrepreneurship alive and to build on their dreams of becoming a successful entrepreneur.

About NEN

The National Entrepreneurship Network (NEN) is Wadhwani Foundation’s flagship initiative in India. It was established in 2003 with a mission to inspire, educate and support high potential entrepreneurs to create millions of high-value jobs. NEN does this by building institutional capacity for entrepreneur support and a robust entrepreneurial eco-system. It was co-founded with IIT Bombay, IIM Ahmedabad, BITS Pilani, SP Jain Institute of Management and Research and the Institute of Bioinformatics and Applied Biotechnology.

NEN represents Asia’s largest and most dynamic community of young and future entrepreneurs. For more details, visit: www.nenglobal.org

About Wadhwani Foundation

The Wadhwani Foundation was founded in 2003 by Dr. Romesh Wadhwani, a U.S. based philanthropist with passion towards economic growth. Dr. Wadhwani envisioned large-scale, high-impact social change through economic acceleration as the primary mission of the Foundation by focusing on leveraging India’s growing human potential. It is this passion which led to the formation of the Foundation’s first

Entrepreneurship Initiative in 2003. Subsequently, Dr. Wadhwani and his committed colleagues have
fine-tuned the theory of driving social impact through economic acceleration and the Foundation has expanded into U.S. and emerging economies with plans to combine best-in-class workforce development programs and educational technology through:

• Creating niche & high impact initiatives, every two years
• Catalyzing & demonstrating scale and sustainability for wholesome, sustainable impact on economic development
• Engaging government resources & market forces to scale, sustain and create an eco-system for larger participation

The Wadhwani Foundation demonstrates effectiveness of long-term, pro-bono investments in human potential and the demographic dividend. It principally works through partnerships with like-minded individuals, organizations, corporations and governments.

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