TiE Chennai’s annual flagship conference and Tamilnadu’s largest conclave for entrepreneurs, TiECON Chennai 2009 was successfully held today at the Chennai Trade Center. This year’s conclave with the theme –“Enterprising India – Creating Tomorrow’s Entrepreneur” attracted over 1000 entrepreneurs, investors and business school students and saw the cream of Chennai’s business elite and India’s investing community participating as panelists and speakers. N Srinivasan, Vice-chairman of India Cements Ltd., inaugurated the one day conclave and also gave away TiE Chennai Entrepreneur Awards for 2009 starting with Kalainithi Maran of Sun Network who received the Entrepreneur of the Year award. Winners of the other six categories of the awards are – Kami Narayanan of Pre Global Media as Woman Entrepreneur of the Year; P N Vasudevan of Equitas Microfinance as Start-up Entrepreneur of the Year; M B Nirmal of Exnora International as Social Entrepreneur of the Year; Satish Babu of Univercell as Extreme Entrepreneur of the Year; Ravi Appaswamy of Appaswamy Estates and the Residency Group of Hotels as Next Gen Entrepreneur of the Year and M V Subbiah of Murugappa Group as Family Entrepreneur of the Year. N. Srinivasan of India Cements Ltd. was chosen unanimously by the jury for Lifetime Achievement. Gopal Srinivasan, Chairman & MD of TVS Capital Funds Ltd. moderated the entire awards session.
Winners of the LIBA-TiE Chennai Pan-India Business Plan Competition were also announced on the occasion with Chintan Megawanshi from Symbiosis Institute of International Business, Pune winning in the student category for his mobile retailing plan; Kapil Jain winning in the general category for his Renewable Planets plan and Bharath Kumar and Gokul Gururajan from GLIM emerging joint winners for their Karaktiti plan. The winners would be eligible to pitch for VC funds amount to US$500000; courses worth Rs. 5 lakhs; cash prize worth Rs.1.8 lakhs besides TiE associate membership.
Speaking after inaugurating the conclave, N Srinivasan, Vice Chairman & MD, India Cements Ltd., said, “Access to more funds, better and stronger relationship between universities and industry, flexible curriculum structure and schedule at educational institutions besides on-campus incubators will accelerate entrepreneurial growth in the country.” He also called upon governments and successful entrepreneurs to come forward and provide a funding base that will give impetus to entrepreneurship.
In his comments, Gopal Srinivasan, Chairman, TVS Capital Funds Ltd, said, “Today entrepreneurship is coming to the fore and celebrated with more and more passionate individuals becoming highly successful. Associations like TiE need to provide a platform that recognizes aspirants, gives them a stage to express themselves and helps them to take their rightful place in the business world.”
Batting in his inimitable style, Kris Srikanth, Chairman, National Selection Committee, BCCI, and a sports entrepreneur himself, emphasized the need to believe in oneself, be passionate about whatever one does and thinking through the heart as key factors for success in any walk of life including business. He called upon the audience to go with their gut feel quoting from moments in his captaincy where it stood him in good stead.
In his welcome remarks, Ramaraj, President, TiE Chennai, said, “TiE which is anchored on the pillars of networking, mentoring and education globally is a specially created platform for entrepreneurs and we have had initial success already in mentoring and creating new entrepreneurs. The success of TiECON Chennai 2009 only makes that resolve stronger.”
According to J Krishnan, Vice President, TiE Chennai and Chairman of the 2009 conference,” This year it has been bigger with more delegates and bigger names as speakers. The team has worked hard to create simply the single largest platform for entrepreneurs in Chennai and we look forward to being back next year even bigger.”
About TiE Chennai: TiE Chennai is a part of TiE, a global not-for-profit organization that helps budding entrepreneurs by way of advice, guidance and assistance from successful and experienced entrepreneurs and professionals. Founded in Silicon Valley in 1992 by successful entrepreneurs and professionals with roots in the Indus region, today, TiE has 53 Chapters in 12 countries, spread across 5 continents. The TiE ecosystem comprises 11,000 members and 2,500 charter members, who are the top entrepreneurs, venture capitalists, lawyers and management professionals in their chosen field. For more information visit: www.tiechennai.org
About TiE (formerly The Indus Entrepreneurs): TiE, in its 17 years of existence, has today emerged as the world’s largest non-profit global network of Entrepreneurs and professionals, dedicated to the advancement of entrepreneurship. TiE’s mission is to foster conscious entrepreneurship globally by Educating, Mentoring and Networking – Educating – Inspires and educates budding entrepreneurs; Mentoring-Provides role models and one-on-one mentorship through experienced entrepreneurs and support system like VCs, service & Networking-Holds regular conferences, workshops, and networking meetings providing a platform to forge relationships. The 15 TiE chapters in India do 300+ programs for entrepreneurs annually.
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