Tag

Enactus Nationals

Browsing

The young visionaries from across the nation showcased their innovative endeavours in the field of social entrepreneurship at Enactus National Symposium and Competition 2019.

The Enactus National Symposium and Competition 2019 was held at Indian Institute of Technology Delhi on 13th July. From a number of active Enactus chapters across the country, around 70 colleges applied for the championship out of which 30 colleges had the opportunity to compete and present their projects as contenders for the prestigious Enactus National Cup.
Enactus is a worldwide platform that facilitates an exchange between students and business leaders with an aim to create sustainable leadership for the future. Student groups in colleges are encouraged to work towards problems affecting the communities around them by the means of social entrepreneurship. Enactus opened its Indian chapter in 2008 and has since made headway into 108 institutions across the country. Every year these teams compete for the opportunity to represent India in the Enactus World Championship held in September.
The preliminary round of the competition saw the 30 teams being allotted to five different leagues. Presentations were held simultaneously at five halls. These halls were completely packed throughout as competitors and observing teams were earnestly listening to the presentations. Each team was permitted to present two of their successful projects to the judges; this was quickly followed by a thorough question and answer session.
The range of issues tackled by the participating teams was incredibly impressive. Going well beyond basic research, the teams sought to create projects which benefitted communities who are often overlooked. One such example was Project Oorja undertaken by Hindu College. The idea was to provide a sustainable and affordable source of electricity to street vendors who normally spend atleast INR 25 per day on electricity. The solution was solar powered lamps which was a one-time investment and promised durability for at least a period of five years. A lot of the projects displayed were also aimed at reusing the enormous amounts of waste that the consuming class generates. Projects that used waste tires as a sole for footwear and plastic waste as a filler component in pillows were also presented.

The final round of the competition kicked off with Mr Arun M Kumar, Chairman, Enactus India National Advisory Council and Chairman and CEO, KPMG India, addressing the competitors and emphasising that more and more young people are now thinking about making a difference through entrepreneurial action. Mr Devdip Purkayastha, President and Chief training officer of Enactus India commented on the importance of the Symposium as “a platform to reach out to leaders to maximise the power of an individual.”

The five finalists in each league category were:

League 1- Shri Ram College of Commerce

League 2- Shri Guru Gobind Singh College of Commerce

League 3- Delhi College of Arts and Commerce

League 4- Ramjas College

League 5- IIT Delhi

The judges’ oath was sworn in by Mr Arun Kumar,  post which each team got 12 minutes to present their story of innovation and social change.

Ramjas college presented their Projects Aarogya and TeleSwasthya based on affordable and accessible primary healthcare for the people who cannot afford the heavy expenditure on health facilities. The projects based in Hapur and Naggi district have impacted several beneficiaries by making affordable healthcare available to 70%  of the target population. Today, the project runs 24 health centres in Delhi-NCR and has seen a path-breaking success to empower the lives of many.

The second finalist to present their project was Delhi College of Arts and Commerce who presented their flagship projects Taleem and Sahas. Working for the education of the refugees in Shaheen Bagh and Shram Vihar, project Taleem aimed at solving the primary education crisis through their Taleem Centres. Project Sahas helps breast cancer survivors regain confidence post mastectomy by the use of cotton based breast prosthesis- “Canfe” developed by the team, and underprivileged women. It has developed an online platform where one can purchase mastectomy bras.

Shri Ram College of Commerce presented their projects Viraasat and Asbah. The former project helped the Thateras of Jhandiala Guru to improve the out-dated designs of their local craft and the latter brought in a water revolution in Haryana and Muzzafarnagar through the community filtration plant.

Shri Guru Gobind Singh College of Commerce showcased their e-commerce platform BOOK A PLANT which brought in an innovative idea to make a positive impact on the environment. The other project Kasthi was based on the idea to  convert a “Gaon” into a smart village.

The last finalist to present their project was IIT Delhi, who presented their first project Nirmalaya based on special pots for vermicomposting, which were further categorized as Sugriha and Ruchitra. Their second project Arth presented the idea of redefining rituals by manufacturing cowdung based logs for burning the funeral pyre.

Finally the nervous air entered the hall as the results made their way. Enactus Ramjas and Enactus LSR won the 77-seconds video-making challenge.

After a fierce and edgy competition of entrepreneurial action between the finalists, the results of the top three winners were announced. The home team, Enactus IIT Delhi lifted the prestigious National Champion trophy. The team would represent India for the Enactus World Cup at San Jose, California this September. Enactus Shri Ram College of Commerce and Enactus Ramjas College won the second and third position respectively.  

Feature Image Credits: Gauri Ramachandra for DU Beat.

Sriya Rane 

[email protected]

 

Pragati Thapa

[email protected]

 

Enactus, the name synonymous with social work mixed with savvy entrepreneurship, will soon be hosting its National level competition in the first week of July. The list of teams that have made to the finals has been declared and out of 24 qualifying teams, 14 are from the University of Delhi.

The list of qualifying teams:

  1. St. Xavier’s College
  2. Hansraj College (DU)
  3. Netaji Subhas Institute of Technology
  4. Dr. S.S. Bhatnagar University Institute Of Chemical Engineering and Technology
  5. Shri Ram College of Commerce (DU)
  6. Shaheed Sukhdev College of Business Studies (DU)
  7. Jamia Milia Islamia, Delhi
  8. Indian Institute of Technology, Delhi
  9. Shaheed Bhagat Singh College Morning (DU)
  10. Dyal Singh College (DU)
  11. Maitreyi College (DU)
  12. Ramjas College (DU)
  13. The Northcap University
  14. Delhi Technological University
  15. H.R. College of Commerce and Economics
  16. Kalindi College (DU)
  17. Indraprastha College for Women (DU)
  18. Aryabhatta College (DU)
  19. Kamala Nehru College (DU)
  20.  Lady Shri Ram College for Women (DU)
  21. Bharati Vidyapeeth College of Engineering
  22. K. J. Somaiya Institute of Management Studies and Research
  23. Delhi College of Arts and Commerce (DU)
  24. Miranda House (DU)

Every year, a national competition is held in Mumbai where Enactus teams all over India come together to showcase their projects and the winning team goes on to the International World Cup. For a while now DU has been making a mark on the international Enactus circuit. Last year Enactus Shaheed Sukhdev College of Business Studies, won the World Cup.

With 14 DU teams contending for the same prize and less than a month left for the d-day, all Enactus chapters are busy preparing.  Rohit Saha, President of Enactus, Ramjas College, in conversation with DU Beat said, “More than competitiveness, we all value the ultimate goal of social entrepreneurship. It doesn’t matter who wins the Nationals or the World Cup, what matters is that the purpose of helping underprivileged communities is being served. Enactus Nationals is a great opportunity to meet teams from across the country and learn from them. We are looking forward to it.”

Talking about the on-going preparations of the upcoming competition Astha, a member of Enactus, Shaheed Sukhdev College of Business Studies said, “We are extremely excited about the Nationals 2018. The team is working really hard on the presentation while the normal operations and visits are a constant.  Personally, I am looking forward to seeing other teams’ projects and sharing our best practices with one another.”

Feature Image Credits: Enactus SSCBS

Niharika Dabral

[email protected]

 

If you’re a student in college, it’s quite apparent to hear the word ‘Enactus’ time and again, and be drawn towards it once you gather knowledge of their far-reaching projects. Enactus is essentially an international non-profit organization that brings together teams of university students with entrepreneurs and admirable educators to make a meaningful difference in their communities while enhancing their business skills to become great leaders of today and tomorrow.

In the Enactus India National Championship, students from all over the country are provided a forum to showcase the results of their extensive business ventures and community outreach projects through rounds of live, presentation based competition. Having previously won the Enactus National Championship twice, once in 2011 and the other in 2014, Enactus Shaheed Sukhdev College of Business Studies (SSCBS) recently scored a hat-trick by emerging victorious, again, at the Enactus Nationals 2016 held on 21st and 22nd July at Taj Lands End, Mumbai.

Established in January 2009, the team of Enactus SSCBS strives to create a significant change in the society by using the fundamentals of entrepreneurship and implementation of business models to empower all the disadvantaged members of the society and make them self sufficient individuals.

The first and the oldest initiative that Enactus SSCBS worked upon was Sanitary Solutions that aimed at improving the sanitary conditions of women in slums and villages across India. They also promoted the safe and effective use of sanitary napkins by making them easily accessible and extremely affordable to the women of rural areas and urban slums. This initiative was started from the slums of Delhi NCR and later, spread throughout the nation.

Their second outreach initiative was Project Akshar which began in 2011 and focused on setting up low cost environment-friendly notebook production units through collection of waste paper, recycling of the same and binding of this recycled paper into notebooks by our entrepreneurs, i.e. victims of drug abuse and human trafficking. This year, they expanded the paper collection to six cities including Delhi, Mumbai, Chandigarh, Gurgaon, Noida and Vaishali. Further, they also came up with an innovative new variant of producing extremely low priced notebooks, especially for the underprivileged children.

Another project which the team effectively worked on was Grammodhar which aimed at creating an overall holistic development of Ghamroj, a village 30-40 kms from Gurgaon. To stimulate their economy, they encouraged and assisted people in setting up new business ventures such as Poultry farming, beauty parlors and tailoring works. Since it was difficult to penetrate a village, the team also used several trust building activities (such as health camps, etc) to have their bonafide intentions felt.

The two projects which the team presented at Enactus Nationals 2016 were Raahat and Udaan. Through Raahat, the team aims at eradicating open defecation by providing safe sanitation facilities and improving the existing infrastructure of community toilets. They began by undertaking the management of toilet complexes in Sultanpuri and adopted a user centric approach which included the system of family passes, sensitisation and health campaigns. As a result, the population who defecated in the open dropped from 95% to 3% after only six months of their project’s implementation. Udaan, on the other hand, aims to promote digital literacy through setting up of computer labs in villages and teaching the working knowledge of computers to all children by women entrepreneurs. Currently, the team has set up 12 computer centres in villages across Uttar Pradesh, Haryana and many more.

On being asked to unveil the secret of their team’s continual success, Harsh Garg, one of the team members of Enactus SSCBS said, “What really sets our team apart is our approach towards problem solving. One of our core beliefs has been that we can solve India’s most daunting social and economic issues if we empower individuals to take an action against it. This is manifest in all of our projects. We do not just empower our entrepreneurs in terms of their income but also in terms of their capability to impact people. This leads to a chain effect in which setting up even a single computer centre or a production unit ends up bringing about a change in several lives. Another thing which differentiates our team is the amount of passion and commitment exhibited by each and every member of the project. More than a team, we are a close knit family which possesses an unconditional attachment for our work at Enactus, without which we cannot survive even one normal conversation, let alone a day.”

Currently, the team is busy with their preparation of new ideas for their project’s presentation at the Enactus World Cup, where they will compete against the National Champion teams from 36 other countries in Toronto, Canada.
DU Beat wishes the entire team good luck for all their future endeavors!

Featured Image Credits: https://web.facebook.com/EnactusSscbs/?_rdr
Shagun Marwah
[email protected]

Enactus has been a pioneer in changing the lives of students and communities all around the world. But what makes it so special?

Last month, Enactus conducted its national competition which saw a participation from 60+ college teams from across the country. While all of the teams had projects which made a difference for a different community, teams from Hans Raj College, Ramjas College, and IIT-Delhi stole the show.

Here is a list of projects that were run by the winning teams, each including their impact and sustainability figures:

  1. Enactus Hansraj had two major projects- Project Boond and Project Mithaas

Hansraj

Project Boond

Venture – Providing unprivileged masses an access to clean drinking water through production of low cost water purifiers that run without electricity.

Producers – Intellectually challenged individuals from NGO Samvedna.

People directly impacted – 6

People indirectly impacted – 440

Project Mithaas

Venture – The project aims at encouraging the farmers to take up the highly profitable business of beekeeping.

Producers – Farmers

Direct Impact – 6 farmers

Indirect Impact – 95 farmers

 

  1. Enactus Ramjas portrayed 3 major projects and came first runners up –

Ramjas

Project Transcreations

Venture – Aims at financial, educational and societal inclusiveness benefits of members of the Transgender community by teaching arts of jewellery making, soft skills and many more

Producers – Transgenders

People directly impacted – 22
People indirectly impacted – 2580

Project Aradhaga

Venture – Project Aradhaga aims at the social and financial upliftment of the unemployed women of the slums of Jahangirpuri and JJ Basti areas of Delhi by teaching them accessory making.

Producers – Unemployed Women

People directly impacted – 15
People indirectly impacted – 1550

They have another project named Project Amlaan which has just started.

 

  1. Enactus IIT Delhi, the winners of the competition presented 2 projects –

IIT D

Project Exelsior India

Venture – Teaching kabadiwaalas the art of managing money, eliminating middlemen, providing them with microfinance opportunities and finally making recycled notebooks with the material picked up by kabadiwaalas. Under the project, they also created cardboard tables with solar lamps for students.

Producers – Kabadiwaalas
People directly impacted – 31,514
People indirectly impacted – 1,57,570

Project Aanch

Venture – Creating a stove which was eco friendly and trained women to produce them. It provides women highly cost-effective alternatives for cooking and reduces pollution.

Producers – Rural women
People directly impacted – 2312

People indirectly impacted – 1,35,000

Feature Image Credits: htcampus.com

Ishaan Sengupta

[email protected]