Students across Bangalore have caught E Week India fever! During this week, in a celebration of today's opportunities, Bangalore will witness over 1,000 entrepreneurship events hosted by 15 colleges, engaging more than 20,000 students in the city. By sheer numbers, Bangalore looks like it will outmatch the other participating 29 cities in entrepreneurial fervor.

E Week India (Feb 2-9, 2008), being run at the initiation of the not-for-profit organization, National Entrepreneurship Network (NEN) is a weeklong public awareness campaign, aimed at celebrating the opportunities in today's India and improving the ecosystem for entrepreneurship in the country. Participation in this second-ever E Week India, will total about 2,00,000 across the country, doubling that of last year.

Bangalore's E Week participants include many of the city's top colleges Mount Carmel, Jyothi Nivas, Mahaveer Jain, St. Joseph's, Sir MVIT, IIMB, IIIT-B, MSRIT, MES and IFIM.

"Never before have students, with full support of faculty and administration, turned campuses so completely inside-out. It's a clear indication of a revolution in young people's outlooks," says Laura Parkin, NEN's Executive Director.

St. Joseph's and Mahaveer Jain College are clearly targeting National Championships, conducting almost 500 and 300 events respectively during E Week. Last year Champion Mount Carmel College is running over 70 events making sure that it's an informative and exciting week in college.

The variety of events is extraordinary, and many are open to the public. Project 'Mission Jagriti' by students from St Joseph's involves 15 of the unaided colleges of Bangalore, with activities such as team building, creativity and business plan workshops.

MCC's kitty of events includes an interactive session with unusual entrepreneurs; a fashion show put on by student designers judged by the talented duo from Folio and Namrata G ; as well as 'Cooking with Constraints' yet another unique entrepreneurial intercollegiate event where participants come up with innovative recipes using a limited set of ingredients. The final results of the Cooking contest will be judged by by Vikram Kirloskar and Arjun Sajnani of Sunny's.

In Jain College, EWeek celebrations have close to 200 student organizers conducting more than 300 events during the week. Each day of the week is assigned a different theme including micro entrepreneurs, green day, leaders and visionaries and each theme a different color to depict the various facets of an entrepreneur.

Sameerkanth, NEN Consultant, Bangalore, explains, "The awareness of entrepreneurship and maturity level amongst students is pretty high in Bangalore. What also makes Bangalore exciting is the fierce competition in the city amongst colleges with institutes gunning for E Week recognition -- they are literally fighting with each other!"

NEN will be honoring the 'Champion' institutes at the National E Week Closing Ceremony on Feb 9th in Bangalore.

NEN is co-hosting E Week 2008 with over 270 member colleges from across the country along with entrepreneur support associations such as TiE, IVCA, IAN, Proto.in and Dare. E Week 2008 is supported by corporate sponsors including HSBC, Himalaya and Symphony Services.

Information on E Week India events can be obtained on E Week website www.eweekindia.org.

About NEN
National Entrepreneurship Network (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 3 lakh young people across 30 cities of India. The organization was co-founded in 2002 by leading Indian institutes, including IIT-Bombay, IIM-Ahmedabad, BITS Pilani, SP Jain and IBAB. NEN's advisory board includes eminent experts such as Kiran Mazumdar Shaw - Biocon; Naina Lal Kidwai - HSBC; Arun Seth - British Telecom and Prof Howard Stevenson - Harvard Business School to name a few.

Media contacts
Babit Batra
Manager, Strategic Communications
National Entrepreneurship Network (NEN)
E Mail: babit[at]nenglobal.org

Ms. Shruti Upadhyay /
Ms. Subhashini Pattabhiraman
Text 100
Phone: 080 25548808-11
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