21st - 31st August 2023: BSSS Incubation Centre, an initiative of The Bhopal School of Social Sciences to support in building Start-up of Students and other stakeholders of the Start-up Ecosystem in India was inaugurated on 30th August 2019. This year, BSSS Incubation Centre has completed Four successful years of building and nurturing Start-ups of students, alumni and even many aspiring entrepreneurs who have not been associated with the college as student or staff. The celebration was organized on 31st August 2023 and also was cooccurring with a ten-day celebration of World Entrepreneurship Day which was on 21st August 2023. A series of events were organized for all these ten days, with two of the events in collaboration with Department of Commerce. The events included a quiz, an essay and a debate competition along with exhibition by students at different locations of college.
21st August 2023 is celebration of World Entrepreneurship Day and the ten-day celebration was initiated by the first activity which was a quiz competition. The competition was organized by the ED Cell and BSSS Incubation Centre and was coordinated by Dr. Arti Mudaliar (Nodal Officer, BSSS Incubation Centre) and Mr. Arun Panicker (Manager, BSSS Incubation Centre). The theme for the competition was Entrepreneurship and was organized with the help of Google Forms. The quiz competition was open for all the students of the college and the google form link was circulated with a promotional flyer with the help of WhatsApp groups of college. The competition was open for the next two days against which one hundred thirteen participations were received. Of the received participants four entries had scored the highest points of twenty-four by four competitors, who were announced as the winners of the competiton. The winners were Palak Shrivastava, Payal Shrivastava, Kaustubh Saxena and Jau Gupta and all four of them are from B.Com.
The second activity celebrating World Entrepreneurship Day was an essay writing competition, which was organised keeping in mind to augment and instigate the inclination of students towards start up’s and developing their innate skills of being an entrepreneur. This idea promoted students to search and research about different fields and to understand the entire Start-up Ecosystem.
The Essay Writing competition was organised in online mode, wherein students from different departments submitted their essays through a circulated google form link. The last date for accepting responses was 28th August. The themes of the Essay writing were Entrepreneurship as an alternate career choice, Entrepreneurship for self-Reliant India, Entrepreneurship for Everyone and Start-up Ecosystem. A total of 24 students participated which included twenty girls and four boys.
The criteria for judgement included relevance to the theme, comprehensiveness, originality and insights. The competition was judges by Dr. Namrata (Department of Humanities and Social Sciences, MANIT, Bhopal) and Mr. Jibin Thomas (Librarian, The Bhopal School of Social Sciences). In the competition first position was won by Siddhanth Paul, second position by Nandika Malviya and third position by Shriyanshi Pandey.
On the final day of celebrating the World Entrepreneurship Day, an inter-departmental debate competiton which was the last of the series of the events organized. The competition was organised with the aim of honing the public speaking skills of the students and teach them to be articulate while expressing their thoughts and opinions. The session was the display of opinions, thoughts and perspective that enhanced the knowledge and understanding about the Start-up Ecosystem. For judging the event Dr. Namrata who also judged the essay competition and Ms. Jenifer Fernandez, Controller of Examination, BSSS College were invited.
The competition was organised in BSSS Main Seminar Hall, where students from different departments came to participate. Students representing the Department were shortlisted by their HODs. The Topic of the Debate was “Start-up Ecosystem: An Illusion or Reality”.
A total of 12 students participated which included of ten girls and two boys.
The criteria for judgement included organisation and clarity, use of argument, presentation style, fluency and delivery, relevance to the topic and bonus marks were given for interjections.
One winner and a runner up were judged in both the motion and against the motion.. Sania Siddiqui and Tejasvi Sen were the winner and runner up for the motion and Surbhi Sharma and Pranav Agrawal were the winner and runner up for against the motion.
In the past ten days of celebrating World Entrepreneurship Day, few of the student entrepreneurs who are into designing and creation of different products were given the opportunity to exhibit and sell their products in the college premises. They exhibited at various spots in the college, mostly at the BSSS Alumni Theatre along with near BSSS Auditorium whenever there was an event organized by the college. The products and services by the students included artificial jewellery, bags and also as Rakhi was an upcoming, there were rakhi and other products along with mehndi designing. This was also done as pilot market research of their products, which was well received. With this many more students from the college connected with the organizing team for similar further opportunities.
Post the competition, celebration of the BSSS Incubation Centre Foundation Day commenced with Ms. Simra Khan and Ms. Sukhmanjeet Kaur (both are student members of IIC Council) welcoming the dignitaries, faculty and all the students. They introduced the BSSS Incubation Centre to the audience and invited Dr. Arti Mudaliar who is the Nodal Officer of The BSSS Incubation Centre to address the celebration. She initiated by being thankful to Dr. Fr. John P.J. (Principal, BSSS College) and the college administration who gave her the opportunity to lead BSSS Incubation Centre. She also acknowledged the previous Nodal Officer Dr. Smitha Pillai for her efforts in building the facility in college along with founding members. Post which she presented the accomplishments of the four years along with Mr. Arun Panicker (Manager, BSSS Incubation Centre), strongly focusing on the activities and events of the last academic year. Highlight of the recently concluded First Stage Evaluation of MSME Idea Hackathon 3.0 (women) was also presented, for which twenty-six applications were received by the BSSS. They also presented their vision for the present academic year and also briefed on the Innovative Start-up Ideas by the present Incubates of the Incubation Centre. Mr. Arun Panicker also presented the concept of BSSS Bazaar which will be a market place for the ones who have been associated with the college as students in the past fifty golden years of the college and as well as the present staff also. He then invited the students, who had the opportunity to exhibit their products in the past ten days to present their testimony. After this the comparers invited the principal of the college Dr. Fr. John P.J. to address the audience, he initiated with what made the college administration to introduce the BSSS Incubation Centre and also acknowledged Dr. Smitha Pillai (Previous Nodal Officer and founder) who took the initiative to develop the Incubation Centre, the past members and the present members and also conveyed his best wishes for the future.
After the motivational addressal by the principal, now it was time for announcing and rewarding the winners of all the three competitions held on the occasion of World Entrepreneurship Day. The winners were announced and rewarded by medals and certificates which were felicitated by the dignitaries and the judges present in the event.
The celebrations concluded with Dr. Arti Mudaliar presenting the vote of the thanks, she also gifted Principal a latest launched book and by distributing sweets among the audience present at the event.
With the series of events related to Entrepreneurship, awareness and motivation was developed among the students of the college and there is expectation that many more students will turn towards entrepreneurship in the coming time.