Workshop on “Startup Ecosystem for Early Stage Entrepreneurs”

Endeavor to motivate students for entrepreneurial activity, Expeditors Club, MBA department in association with Institutions Innovation Council (IIC) and Entrepreneurship Development Cell of PES’s Modern College of Engineering has organized the workshop on “Startup Ecosystem for Early Stage Entrepreneurs”.
The resource person for the session was Mr. Sopan Aghav. Mr.Aghav is a successful Entrepreneur and Director and Business Head of Pushpa Impex (ShriGunj), Pune having rich experience of more than 15 years in entrepreneurial activities.
In his session, he talked about entrepreneurial ecosystem for early stage entrepreneurs by refereeing t his own experiences during the early stage of startup. He then briefs about difference between Startup and business. His focus was on startup recognition by the government. What are eligibility criterion for registering company as a startup and benefits of registration.
He then focusses on Funding aspect for early stage startups and explain the prerequisite for availing the funds for startup. He mentioned various governmental and non-governmental sources from where the funds can be procured. With examples of angel investors to some governmental incentives how the early stage entrepreneurs can seek funds s explained by Mr.Aghav. In the end he discusses some cases from Shark Tank show to stress on the message that Idea/ concept is more important than various functions of Management. The workshop was very encouraging for the students to transform them in to job creator instead of job seeker.

Workshop on “Intellectual Capital and Startup Ecosystem”

On the occasion of World IPR day on 26th April 2023, workshop on “Intellectual Capital and Startup Ecosystem” was organized. The session speaker Mr. Gaus Sayyad speak on “Startup Ecosystem”. Mr.Gaus is Co-Founder & COO of a startup, Tidbeat.com and also COO of Wingrowagritech.com FPC. The session started with introduction to “Startup”. How one should be passionate about making their ideas work.

The expert discussed how starters need to have everything properly planned before start. The speakers also spoke about the prerequisites of starting a business and running it in a profitable manner. All this was explained by discussing start-up stories of Paytm, Fresh menu, Flipkart, Ola, Uber, Swiggy as well as their own journey. He also discussed different strategies which entrepreneurs are making to attract customers like free deliveries, exchange policies, discounts through their online apps, concessions on first order etc. Students wanted to know how to spot opportunities and how their education helped the young entrepreneurs with planning, financing and managing their businesses. They conveyed the importance of proper planning and structured learning through education.

ECOTRON: Programming Hackathon on C,C++, Java, Python

Hackathon provides a platform for students to unleash their creativity and collaboration skills, two vital skills for future learning and career development, through coming up with ideas and building the product collaboratively. Department of ECE Engineering in collaboration with IIC organised a Hackathon to test on programming skills of the students. Firstly, a workshp was organized on what’s and how’s of Hackathon. Students were briefed about what actually Hackathon is all about and how can they prepare solutions to make workable applications. The past winners of the Hacathon shared their experiences of to motivate the junior students. The team also explained how the event is beneficial for participants. This all ignited a spark of interest in them. The students were also shown an example problem and the solution they can developed for it. The participants were found keenly encouraged and curious about Hackathon.

The themes covered were food application, fitness application, ecommerce and library management as examples. Student coordinator has taken a big leap to make healthy and innovative coding environment among participants during these three days. On 23 March, attractive prizes are given to the winning team by our Head of Department Dr, Mrs.Arati Vyavahre.

A session on “Achieving Problem- Solution Fit And Product Market Fit”

The main aim of the session was to give information about various Product as Solution to problem of current product and fit the product to the current market scenario. The session speaker was Mr. Mr. Pradip Gaikwad – Incubation Manager, STPI-MOTION CoE, Pune. This program was as an initiative from IIC & ED Cell and Department of Electrical Engineering in bringing forth a very good session for giving information to students regarding about Various Product as Solution to problem of current product and fit the product to the current market scenario. The students got a detailed idea about how to connect the product according to current market need and build a product that actually solve a problem. Students got information about various Incubation Centre’s and Schemes available to support their innovative idea’s. Students also realized that Startup can be also be a career path.

Programming Competition “Dev-Fiesta 2k23

Department of Computer Engineering has organized a Three Days Programming Competition “Dev-Fiesta 2k23” in association with ED Cell & IIC. This competition is Run Time for Dev-Fiesta Hackathon is 2 hrs which Includes Sections like-

1. Technical Quizzes,
2. Aptitude Questions
3. Programming Competition

Programming Competition is on HackerRank. HackerRank is a competitive coding platform where it allows you to practice various coding problems and participate in many challenges. It provides various hackathons, coding challenges. This competition helped to provide an opportunity to student to present their ideas, results, and development activities in the fields of Computer Engineering.

Workshop on “Entrepreneurship and Opportunities for Engineers”

This session was conducted by Dr. Prakash Sharma, Global Startup Ecosystem Ambassador-International Startup Ecosystem. Prof. Dr. Mrs.S.D. Borde, Prof. Mrs. Anita. N. Mankar felicitated and welcomed Dr. Prakash Sharma sir. Dr. Sharma is a highly accomplished engineering expert and entrepreneur, with a wealth of experience in both academia and industry. He holds a PhD in Marketing- Entrepreneurship Ecosystem, MBA, and certified PMP. In the first session, he shared his valuable insights and experiences on how engineers can leverage their skills and knowledge to create successful businesses and make a positive impact on the world. In the second half, he asked to find out pain points like communication, financial and several other concepts and how should we overcome them. Dr. Sharma emphasized the importance of improving our listening skills and communication skills. Lastly, he gave the significance of experimenting with startup which could become as a great career opportunity.

Session on “Critical & Innovative Thinking Skills- Be a Marketing King”

Session on Critical & Innovative Thinking Skills- Be A Marketing King was organized under Workshop on “Critical and Innovative Thinking Skills” in association with Institution’s Innovation Council (IIC) & Entrepreneurship Development Cell on Monday, 27th February 2023 at 10.30 The session started with the speaker’s Ms. Shrruti Clarence, Director, SkillEtz Foundation welcome and introduction. The session was chaired by Dr. R.S. Kamathe, IQAC, Dr. Shraddha Bhandwalkar, HoD, MBA Department and Dr. Sheetal Borde, Coordinator, ED Cell & Institution’s Innovation Council were present. Guest was felicitated and welcomed by the Vice- Principal & IQAC coordinator, Dr. R.S. Kamathe. Ms. Shrruti Clarence briefed about various components of Marketing & Brand building. She highlighted the importance of brand building and also provided some inputs on to be the marketing king. This was followed by a very cordial interactive session between the speaker, faculty members and students. The various activity undertaken by the speaker was very entertaining and informative to both students and faculties. The activities help students to promote themselves and focus on personal branding. At the concluding part of the session, students raised their doubts related to confidence building, branding & marketing aspects

A seminar on Process of Innovation Development & Technology Readiness Level (TRL)& Commercialisation of Lab Technologies & Tech-Transfer

As a part of IIC 5.0 activities, MCA department has conducted above activity in online mode in order to create an awareness amongst students regarding Innovation and to understand Technology Readiness Level. Dr. K. Laxmi was the chief guest for this activity. She started her session by the concept of research. She has shown various videos about the recent innovations in the field of science and technology. She has explained well about the various steps included in industry readiness level. She motivated students regarding carrying out the projects with innovative ideas

A visit to Forensic Lab: Exploring the Career opportunities in Cyber security

To make students think innovatively about cyber-security by observing forensics labs operations, equipment and technologies used in enhancing cyber security, a visit to Sana Cyber Forensics Investigation and Data Security Services Lab was arranged on 20th Feb, 2023 for AIML and AIDS branch students. Mr. Nachiket Dandekar, Founder and Director, Sana Cyber Forensics Investigation and Data Security Services Pvt. Ltd. explained about how cybercrimes are happened, how to tackle cyber-attacks, how cybercrimes are investigated using AI technology & various aspects of cyber security. He also explained different encryption techniques used to increase privacy of our data. They even portrayed numerous stories about how people got trapped in a cyber-attack and how we should avoid it in the future. He demonstrated how to recover the deleted data from smart phone and also explained how data is recovered from crashed server at crime site. The lab technicians also explained the lab's functions and operations. The lab is organized in a manner that emphasizes collaboration and information sharing. The lab's equipment and technologies are up to date and well-maintained, and also the equipment’s and machines are licensed and cannot be sold to anyone, the equipment’s need special permission so it requires a responsible authority to handle and use it. Students observed various types of equipment, including servers, routers, and firewalls, and software such as network monitoring and intrusion detection systems.

Telescope Making Workshop

This workshop was conducted by Prof. Mayuresh Kulkarni, incubation manager, COEP’s Bhau institute of startup incubation centre. The workshop began by introducing the IIC and ED cell of institute. Prof. V. Raote, Prof. Dr. S.D. Borde, Prof. Dr. Edlabadkar felicitated and welcomed Kulkarni sir. Principal Prof. Dr. K.R Joshi also interacted with the students during the workshop. The first half of the workshop was a 2 hour theory session based on basic principles of optics including magnification concept and its formulae, Rayleigh criterion, fundamentals of ray diagram, history of telescopes, types and general facts of telescopes which were explained through PPT and videos. After lunch break, the hands on session was conducted. In this session, participants initially learned about a pin hole camera made by using simple daily used materials like plastic glass, butter paper. This was followed by making of actual telescope by using a sheet holder, a double convex lens and eyepiece. In the process of making a telescope not only did they learn its working mechanism and precautions while handling but also other engineering processes

A session on Innovative start-ups and Entrepreneurship

This program was as an initiative from IIC, ED Cell and Department of Electrical Engineering in bringing forth a very good session for giving information to students regarding various opportunities and challenges involved in Hydrogen Fuel Vehicle sector and also encourage student to select Entrepreneurships as career options. Mr. Ajinkya Salve – Co- Founder X – Gen Fuel delivered the seminar on challenges involved in manufacturing Hydrogen fuel. He give information about how Hydrogen Fuel Cell can serve as innovative alternative to current conventional fuel used in vehicles. He also emphasized on Hydrogen Fuel Vehicles sector as career option considering its huge demand in near future.

AARAMBH: Workshop on Innovation, Entrepreneurship and Personality Development

A four days’ Workshop on Innovation, Entrepreneurship and Personality Development was organised by IIC, ED cell and General Science department from 16/11- 19/11 for newly admitted FE students as a part of the induction program.

A session on “Importance of Innovation’ was organized on the Day 1. The Guest Speaker Dr.Nagesh Rajopadhye, started the session by emphasizing the Importance of Innovation As the session proceeded the speaker talked about how to innovate. He explained various important parameters in innovation like “break mental model, change the frame etc. Second session was on “Psychometry for Self Development” delivered by the same speaker. He emphasized on the importance of knowing our own self and achieve self-development through that. The last session on Day 1 was about Time and stress management and helped students a lot to get important tips for the same. On Day 2, the first session was on “ Awareness of Cyber security” which helped students get an insight into the upcoming field of cyber security and bundle of career opportunities available in the field. Importance of proper posture was taught by speaker in Ergonomics for Engineers session, which helped students for understanding importance of body posture.

On Day 3, we have invited on of our successful alumni- entrepreneur, Mr Hrutwij Maske and Mr Rajendra Udawant to share their success story who are now working on a multidimensional initiative in the space of Bio-Fuel manufacturing. The project aims to cover and ensure the holistic development of Agriculture segment. The session on “ Career Opportunities for Engineers” was given by Mrs. Mugdha Bhajekar and Mrs. Yogita Narwadkar (Central T&P CO-ordinators) explained various career options starting from public sector to private sector and Government jobs.On Day 4, a project exhibition was organized by FE students at each department. These simple projects were developed by the FE students using their basic knowledge.