Speaking at the inauguration Mr Lakshmi Narayanan said “We can emerge much stronger by learning from each downturn and flexibly changing our policies in the right direction.” Dr TV Somnathan in his address defined entrepreneurship as spotting and assessing opportunities at the right time and then taking it forward with hard work and ambition. In his opinion it is not the role of government to mass produce entrepreneurs. Government can only catalyze the culture of entrepreneurship by removing the blocks that obstruct smooth flow. Dr Bala Balachandran founder & Dean, Great Lakes said “There is a strong need for entrepreneurial ventures to fill the gap created by the closure of several companies due to the global melt down.” He stressed on the need for a focused MBA program for entrepreneurship in the SME sector and mentioned about undertaking the plan forward in India with Kellogg School of business through collaboration.

Ms Mridula Ramesh, Executive Director, Sundaram Textiles said that around 50 million jobs needs to be created in upcoming years for absorbing surplus agricultural labor and that needs to be done in tier II and tier III cities and not in tier I cities. She highlighted the problems faced by entrepreneurs in these cities such as of getting senior professionals, talent and cultural differences in tier II and tier III cities which means you need to groom talent from within your organization itself. GRK Reddy, Managing Director, MARG discussed the role of an Entrepreneur. He said that an entrepreneur needs to lead the people, his associates and team members, customers, resource providers as a catalyst. He shall have clear objectives as to exactly what he wants to do.

Prof Munish Thakur, XLRI Jamshedpur contested that entrepreneurship is about risk taking and said it is creating customers with innovation. He gave examples of a few entrepreneurs like Steve Jobs, Sam Walton, Karsanbhai Patel, Bill Gates, Brin and Page, Capt. Gopinath etc. He based his model of entrepreneurship basically on four factors motivation, capabilities, resources & opportunities. Prof Pranay Swain, IIM Kolkata threw light on ‘Role of social entrepreneurship in tier II and tier III cities’. He said that entrepreneurship is all about innovation. Also, for a commercial venture to be in place, one needs to have a market and an understanding of potential consumers. He narrated the case study of Bakul Foundation. Mr TN Seshan, former Chief Election Commissioner and permanent Faculty at Great Lakes delivered the valedictory session. He said Entrepreneurship and leadership are like swimming and wondered if it could be taught. He advised the students to create jobs instead of going for jobs by pursuing entrepreneurship particularly in the current scenario. Between knowledge, enterprise and human demand the opportunities for entrepreneurship are abundant.

Other speakers who spoke on various topics were Mr Ramraj R, President, TiE – EPR plunge a opportunity, biz model , Dr Arya Kumar, Chief Entrepreneurship Development IPR Unit, BITS Pilani, Madan Padaki, Co-founder MeritTrac, Ramakrishnan K, ED, Investment Banking, SPARK Capital, Anuradha Ramachandran, Principal, VentureEast-India, Nandakumar S, Founder & CEO of Perfint Techologies, Raghu Rajagopal, Founder & CEO of Energeate, Program Co-ordinator Chennai Fund, Parthasarthy S, Chairman and CEO, Nu Street Technologies, Sameer Mehta, Founding Director, Atlas Advisory & Ventures and COO, Dr Mehta Hospitals, VV Ranganathan, ChairmanaCompassites, Former Partner E&Y;, VC: PN Vasudevan, Equitas Microfinance Ltd.