At the centre of a lot of innovation today is the ‘entrepreneur’. Somehow, this word conjures up the image of a group of youngsters who have left their high-paying jobs to follow a dream of an idea. Does it require something special to become an entrepreneur? How can one qualify to become one?
Professor Suresh Bhagavatula, Chairperson – NSRCEL at IIM Bangalore, believes that ‘anybody can become an entrepreneur’. Filled with this passion of empowering those with an ‘idea’ with the paraphernalia to starting their own ‘ventures,’ he created aMassive Open Online Course (MOOC) titled ‘DO Your Venture: Entrepreneurship for Everyone.’ At the end of this course, any participant would be able to answer the question: ‘Is entrepreneurship for me?’ While the MOOC itself has seen more than 25,000 enrolments from around the world, Professor Suresh and the IIMBx MOOCs Programme had higher dreams – the dream of ingraining this idea of entrepreneurship in students.
To achieve this dream, the IIMBx MOOCs Programme has embarked on an Academic Partnership Programme in Entrepreneurship aimed at Under-graduate and Post-graduate students. The first pilot was a great success with 40 students from CMS School, Jain University taking up the DO Your Venture MOOC, submitting their business plan and attending a tete-a-tete with Professor Suresh at IIMB. The students were energized and equipped to start their own venture, thanks to this programme.
