16 July, 2024, Bengaluru: IIM Bangalore’s two-year full-time MBA Post Graduate Programme in Management (PGP) students, hosted the 17 th edition of the annual entrepreneurship summit, in collaboration with NSRCEL. The most anticipated entrepreneurship summit of the year united profitability and impact, letting dreams take flight and making ideas become reality. Eximius 2024 was inaugurated by Prof. Rishikesha T Krishnan, Director, IIMB; Kiran Mazumdar Shaw,Founder, Biocon Limited and Biocon Biologic, Former Chairperson, IIM Bangalore; Prof.Mukta Kulkarni ,Dean Programmes, Organizational Behavior & Human Resources Management area; Prof. Rajluxmi V Murty, Chairperson, Hostel & Student Activities, Decision Sciences area; Prof. Manaswini Bhalla, Chairperson PGP & PGPBA, Economics area; Komala Devi, Administrative Officer (Students Affairs & Hostel) and Shilpa Naldurgkar, Administrative Officer (PGP Office).

 Delivering the keynote address, Ms. Kiran Mazumdar Shaw, Founder, Biocon Limited and Biocon Biologics, shared her entrepreneurship journey; her pursuit of making affordable healthcare accessible to all. “A pioneering idea is always fraught with huge challenges”, she reflected, recalling her journey of building a biotech empire from an idea conceived in 1978.

 This year’s summit, themed ‘Ideate to elevate’, was a landmark event with 52000+ registrations, 4000+ on-campus participants, around 200 founders, 20+ VCs, and budding entrepreneurs from across the country. Over 1000 start-ups participated in events such as Bzzwings, Ideathon and Startup Expo. Pitcher Perfect, which follows a ‘Shark Tank’ model, witnessed India’s leading VC firms — 100X, Antler, Eagle 10 and Capital A funding opportunities worth ₹1.5Cr.

 The summit also saw over 30 speaker sessions, fireside chats, panel discussions, workshops, and product demonstrations, as well as 30 national-level case competitions with a prize pool worth over ₹15 Lakh including incubation opportunities with NSRCEL.

 Competitions included crafting powerful pitches, marketing strategies, portfolio building, valuation, IPO pitching, retail sales pitches, live business problem and business development. Setting this edition of Eximius in motion, Prof. Rishikesha addressed the gathering and underscored IIMB’s leadership in online executive education over the recent years.

 Speaker sessions and Panel discussions

Kicking off Eximius 2024 was Yamini Bhat, Co-founder & CEO Vymo, and IIMB Alum who delivered a session on, ‘Test the water, take the plunge’. Leveraging her experience building one of the fastest growing SaaS platforms in the world, Yamini defined the culture and set the pace for budding entrepreneurs.

 Kris Gopalakrishnan, Co-founder of Infosys, discussed, ‘Transitioning into a world of machine super-intelligence’. When speaking in context of the AI revolution, Mr. Gopalakrishnan said, “The democratization of computing has transformed the way businesses are run” Shyam Srinivasan, CEO of Federal Bank, leveraged his tech acumen and strategic foresight, delving into the intersection of banking and entrepreneurship, in a fireside chat moderated by Prof. Suresh Bhagavatula from the Entrepreneurship area.

 Day 2 of Eximius 2024 commenced with an impactful ‘Socialpreneurship’ Panel discussion , featuring Ashok Kamath, Chairman of Akshara Foundation, and Shukla Bose, Founder of Parikrma Humanity Foundation. The session was facilitated by Prof. Soham Sahoo from the Public Policy area. The speakers shared insights on using entrepreneurship to drive social reform and education advocacy, with the importance of creating sustainable and scalable education models.

 Prajakta Koli, Youth Icon, Content creator & Actress, spoke on building a creator business. She drew parallels between being a social media content creator and the start-up journey, emphasizing the unique sense of agency that comes with being your own boss.

 Narayan Subramaniam, CEO, Ultraviolette Automotive Pvt. Ltd. shared his insights on developing India’s first ecosystem of high-performance electric vehicles and future-ready energy infrastructure as part of the Deeptech panel. Kshitij Khandelwal, Founder, Pixxel, discussed revolutionizing space data utilization, and the transformative impact of their high- resolution imaging on diverse industries including agriculture, mining, environment, and energy.

 The Venture Capital panel featured Adarsh Sekhar and Anju Gupta. IIMB faculty Prof. G Sabarinathan, Finance & Accounting area facilitated the session. Anju Gupta, Co-founder of Ivycamp, educated budding entrepreneurs on the importance of partnerships between funds and founders. Adarsh Sekhar, Partner at IBM Ventures, discussed the growing mainstream acceptance of AI, and addressed how large corporations, like IBM, seek to stay close to large- scale, disruptive, and upcoming innovations.

 Nandita Sharma, CEO, Ame Organic, and Hemant Soreng, Rustic Travel, Mt. Everest summiteer, IIMB alumnus, also delivered engaging sessions.  The event also featured workshop sessions such as Ace the Case- Masterclass in Case Competitions by Qareer.in; Infinite Innovation- Design thinking in the age of AI and ever- evolving customers by Nikunj Dang, Former Managing Director at Accenture Strategy; and Business Analytics and Intelligence with Power BI by Shailja Mishra, Data Scientist at Microsoft.