22 AUGUST, 2021: Students of the Post Graduate Programme in Management (PGP) at IIM Bangalore hosted the 14th edition of Eximius 2021, one of the largest entrepreneurial summits in the country, on 21st and 22nd August, 2021. This year’s theme, ‘Reflect. Reboot. Rebound’ focused on reflecting the disruptions in the start-up and entrepreneurial ecosystem over the past year, rebooting through pivots and new business models, and rebounding from the pandemic.
The two-day national summit, hosted digitally, comprised 20+ competitions, 15+ speaker sessions, fireside chats, and panel discussions, seven workshops, and product demonstrations by start-ups. One of the highlights of the summit was the ‘Young Entrepreneur Programme’, which featured a startup bootcamp for young entrepreneurs. They were able to get insights from entrepreneurs on ideation, testing and funding.
Case competitions and workshops in entrepreneurship, finance, sustainability, marketing, healthcare, analytics, and fine arts were part of the summit.
Speakers on Sunday (Aug 22nd) included Hasmukh Rawal, Co-founder, MyLab, who held forth on deep technological innovation in diagnostics. Amit Dutta, Managing Partner, Hunch Ventures, shared his insights on targetting a niche market. Aditya Mony, Head, Technology, Servify, spoke on ‘Reimagining the post pandemic return’. This was followed by a firechat session with Akshay Bhushan, Partner, Lightspeed Venture Partners, who spoke on venture investing in India. Ankit Gupta, CEO, OYO Frontier, shared thoughts of working in the hospitality sector.
The panel discussion included one on navigating a black swan event with Ravi Machani, MD, Machani Group, Keyur Shah¸ Head, Product, Servify and Professor Suresh Bhagavatula, faculty from the Entrepreneurship area at IIMB; another on ‘The Wonder Women’ featuring Deepa N Swamy, Co-founder, Flexibees, Revathy Ashok, Co-founder, Strategy Garage, and Dr. Deepti Ganapathy, faculty from the Management Communication area at IIMB; and a third on the gaming industry with Salone Sehgal, General Partner, Lumikai, Saumya Singh, Rathore, Co-Founder, Winzo Games, and Sunil Maheshwari, mentor, NSRCEL.
The workshops on Sunday were led by Mrudula Joshi, Founder, Ullisu, on ‘Circular Design: The future of sustainability in businesses’; Rashi Gupta, Senior Product Manager, Amazon, on product management; and Osho Sidhant, Founder, Bombay Locale, on brand building.
Competitions included crafting powerful pitches, marketing strategies, portfolio building, valuation, IPO pitching, retail sales pitches, live business problem and business development.
Eximius 2021 concluded with a talk by M.V. Rajeev Gowda, ex-MP, Rajya Sabha.
Inaugural & speaker sessions
On Saturday (Aug 21st), Eximius 2021 was inaugurated, digitally, by Vivekananda Hallekere, CEO & Co-Founder, Bounce, Professor Rishikesha T. Krishnan, Director, IIM Bangalore, Professor R. Srinivasan, Chairperson, PGP& PGP (BA) at IIMB, Mukta Sharma from NSRCEL, and Jaikrishna Ramesh from Startup Karnataka.
In the speaker session on ‘Laws of play: Creating a sporting culture’, Saumil Majmudar, Co-founder, CEO & Managing Director, Sportz Village, and alumnus of IIMB, spoke of the need to build an inclusive sports culture among children.
Ajith Pai, Chief Operating Officer, Delhivery, reflected on changes in the logistics industry during the pandemic. Prashant Tandon, Co-founder, 1mg, highlighted the changing landscape of the Indian heathcare sector with the rise of health-tech services and players. Sahil jain, Co-founder, Dineout, shared snapshots of his entrepreneurial journey. Amit Sharma, Consultant, Dishah Consultants, helped participants craft a pitch for their ideas in his workshop ‘Ready, Set, Pitch!’
Speakers on the first day of the summit included Vikram Vaidyanathan, Managing Director, Matrix Partners India; Manish Patel, Co-founder and CEO, Mswipe; Jose Thattil, CEO & Co-Founder, PhiCommerce; Dr. Satya Tripathi, Secretary-General, GASP; and Tarun Sharma, CEO & Co-founder, mCaffeine.