The Tenth 3 day Biennial Conference on Entrepreneurship, organized with the motto, was inaugurated at the hands of Shri Arun Maira, Member, Planning Commission, Govt. of India on February 20, 2013, at the Institute. Prof. Dwijendre Tripathi, Noted Historian was also present on the occasion. The Biennial Conference which is being organized by EDI since 1994 testifies the institute’s pursuit of excellence and contributions to entrepreneurship education, research training and institution building within Indian and Internationally.
Shri Maira, in this address, talked about how he got the first feel of entrepreneurship during his days with the TATAs that had planned to design and entirely build its first car and added that the whole experience demonstrated to him how it required passion to pursue entrepreneurship. Shri Maira spoke about two main forces ruling the world post the collapse of the Berlin Wall-the force of democracy and the force of capitalism, leading to a contention between the two. And, advocating the vision for India, he said that it had to be the “Vision of Democratic Entrepreneurship”. He added that India is the world’s largest democracy, using technology and innovations in elections and hence justified that it was of the people. But in terms of if being of Government for and by the people it had a long way to go and it that since he said, India was an incomplete democracy. Applying this principle to business Shri Maira said that business needs to be of the people, for the people and by the people. He believed that event the poor segment should also find means of creating income for themselves. He said that “Democracy”, entrepreneurship and ownership would also be the best form of socialism. This, urged Shri Maira, to call upon EDI and other similar institutions to focus on small entrepreneurs and embody the idea of the business of the people. He sent out a call to institutions to promote the concept of WE amidst I, over the next few years of intervention
Giving the house a brief about the conference, Prof. Sasi Misra, Conference Chair, said that out of 226 papers submitted, 135 were selected. The participants not just represented India but also Germany, Jordan, Finland, Kenya and Nigeria. The 115 papers presented covered the themes of
- Entrepreneurship in the SME sector
- Intraupreneurship
- Innovations, Incubation & Entrepreneurship
- Social Entrepreneurship
- Entrepreneurship and Family Enterprise
- Gender and Entrepreneurship
- Sectoral Entrepreneurship (e.g. Agripreneurship, Edupreneurship, Tourism Entrepreneurship, Service Management)
The conference provided a platform to researchers, academics, planners, policy-makers to share their work, ideas, and concerns, and brainstorm strategies for entrepreneurship development.
Abstracts and Full Papers of 10th Biennial Conference may be accessed by following this link and to download the 10th Biennial Conference Report click here.
