"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 Feb 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 IANS.

Entrepreneurship Week 2008 builds on the resounding success of the first Entrepreneurship Week 2007. It 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).

"We aim to bring over 200,000 people including students, faculty, entrepreneurs, investors and other experts together through more than 1,800 entrepreneurship activities across 30 cities and towns," Parkin said.

The activities include panel discussions, entrepreneur leadership talks, live case studies, creative entrepreneurial games, film screenings, street plays and entrepreneurship bazaars.

"The central theme of Entrepreneurship Week 2008 is 'Connecting Industry and Academia' to bring the best value of both to India. Thus, Entrepreneurship Week 2008 is expected to reach beyond those already engaged by bringing several others to support entrepreneurship - an effort that will result in building a good ecosystem for new and future entrepreneurs," Parkin pointed out.

Some of the top institutes participating Entrepreneurship Week 2008 include 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.

According to Anil Wali, managing director of the Foundation for Innovation and Technology Transfer (FITT) at IIT-Delhi: "India is going through a growth phase

when innovation based entrepreneurship and the ability to think out of the box will be critical to success in every field in future. "

"Entrepreneurship Week is likely to help build momentum in this direction. We are delighted to play a role in this entrepreneurial awakening, which is rapidly taking root across campuses in India," he added.

IIT-Mumbai Director Ashok Misra said: "The booming Indian economy offers innumerable opportunities for any budding entrepreneur to translate a bold idea into a successful business thereby becoming employment providers rather than job seekers."

"Institutions are vast storehouses of knowledge and entrepreneurship is one way of converting this knowledge into efficient products of utility to society. The eco system at most institutes is techno-centric and needs to be extended to foster the entrepreneurial spirit. Entrepreneurship Week is precisely such an endeavour," Misra said.

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.

NEN'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 Sevenson of the Harvard Business School.

IANS