On 12 July 2018, Hotel Taj Lands East stood firsthand witness to the much awaited annual battle of entrepreneurial action for college students across India; the Enactus National Competition 2018.
After a series of regional competitions, the qualifying teams competed for a spot in the Enactus World Cup 2018 by presenting their Business Ideas and showcasing their impact to an auditorium packed with not just students but also academicians and business leaders. The winning projects were those presented by Enactus Shri Ram College of Commerce, and the National Champions were felicitated by Arun M Kumar, Chairman at Enactus India National Advisory Board and Chairman & CEO at KPMG in India.
Enactus is an international community of student, academicians and business leaders committed to developing free enterprise outreach projects that transform lives and shape a better, more sustainable world. The core philosophy driving these projects is; ‘Give me a fish and I will eat for a day; teach me how to fish and I will eat for a lifetime’. The focus is on sustainability; the project should continue even without the founding team. Enactus has gone from being a small organization at the National Leadership Institute in Texas, USA to a worldwide network of more than 70,500 other students who are each making their own contribution towards their shared mission of creating a better world.
This year, SRCC triumphed over the nationals, strengthening Delhi University’s long held legacy over this competition. The winning projects were Project Virasat, that endeavours to revive the UNESCO listed dying artform of brass and copper utensils through design modification, brand development and targeted marketing strategies, thus impacting 11 ‘Thathair’ families, and Project Asbah, that aims to provide clean drinking water to rural households and urban slums through contamination specific filtration mechanism.
In 2017, the team from Shaheed Sukhdev College of Business Studies dominated the Enactus Nationals and was eventually named World Champion for Project Raahat, which aims to increase sanitation in slum communities of urban Delhi, and Project Udaan, an initiative that empowers women to operate computer centers in rural India to promote skill development and increase awareness of economic opportunities.
Arjun Goel, 3rd year B.Com.(Hons) student at SRCC and the President of Enactus SRCC is euphoric about the victory and aims to bring the World Cup back through his team’s innovative, impactful an invincible ideas. Sachin Natraj, 3rd year B.Com.Hons student at SRCC and Executive Member of Project Asbah says that this is more than a victory for their team – it is a road leading to the betterment of their projects and communities.
Amidst the titans, Enactus Kalindi College, which began just about 10 months ago, saw a meteoric rise amongst the finalists of Enactus Nationals. With a team of only 13 members, Enactus Kalindi was able to carve a niche for itself through Project Rehmat, which aims to protect manual scavengers and provide women scavengers with sustainable livelihood opportunities, like soap-making. Within a short time, Enactus Kalindi was able to beat out competition from 20 other colleges to battle it out in the finals. When DU Beat interacted with Srishti Sharma, the President of Enactus Kalindi, she candidly spoke of her experience of sharing the platforms with established societies like Ramjas and SSCBS, and hopes for an even better run the next year.
We wish the entire team at Enactus SRCC a heartfelt congratulations and the very best for the Enactus World Cup scheduled for October 2018 at the San Jose McEnery Convention Center, California, USA.
Congratulations to the 2018 @EnactusIndia National Champions Shri Ram College of Commerce. See you at #EnactusWorldCup this October in Silicon Valley!
670 people came together yesterday for competition, collaboration and celebration.#EnactusIndia #WeAllWin pic.twitter.com/etcX5Mcm1Z
— Enactus (@enactus) July 12, 2018