"We are delighted and somewhat amazed at the excitement and activity that Entrepreneurship Week 2008 is releasing on campuses across the country," Laura Parkin, executive director of the Bangalore-based National Entrepreneurship Network (NEN), said of the event that began Saturday and will conclude February 9.

"Young people have clearly seized the challenge of improving the ecosystem for entrepreneurs across India and they are applying incredible energy, drive and creativity to the task," Parkin, who is also the executive director of the California-based Wadhwani Foundation that has promoted NEN, told.

Entrepreneurship Week 2008, build on the resounding success of the first Entrepreneurship Week 2007, brings together over 270 member colleges from across the country along with entrepreneur support associations like The Indus Entrepreneurs (TiE), India Venture Capital Association (IVCA), and Indian Angel Network (IAN).

The activities in the event include panel discussions, entrepreneur leadership talks, live case studies, creative entrepreneurial games, film screenings, street plays and entrepreneurship bazaars. Some of the top institutes participating the event includes IIT-Delhi, Faculty of Management Studies-Delhi University, IIT-Mumbai, St. Xavier's College-Kolkata University, Jamia Milia Islamia-Delhi, MDI-Gurgaon, IMT-Ghaziabad, and Amity Business School.

NEN is a not-for-profit initiative of the Wadhwani Foundation, working to inspire, educate and support the younger generation of entrepreneurs. Currently NEN is working with more than 295 top-tier academic institutes reaching over 300,000 young people across 30 cities of India. It's advisory board includes eminent experts such as Kiran Mazumdar-Shaw of Biocon, Naina Lal Kidwai of HSBC Bank, Arun Seth of British Telecom and Howard Stevenson of the Harvard Business School.(IANS)