Media Release

Karkala, Aug 27: The New Age Incubation Network (NAIN) Centre of NMAM Institute of Technology, Nitte, in association with Karnataka Innovation and Technology Society (KITS), dept of Information Technology (IT), Bio-Technology (BT) and Science and Technology (S&T), Government of Karnataka and Start-up Karnataka on August 24 jointly organised a one-day 'E-Step Start-Up Bootcamp'.

E-Step is an initiative by Startup Cell Karnataka with a focus to empower students/start-ups in the state towards entrepreneurship. E-STEP focuses on boot camps, mentoring the students and providing specific training which will cover various aspects of entrepreneurship. It is specially crafted for students/startups to understand the basics of entrepreneurship from experienced trainers.

Welcome address by Dr Nagesh Prabhu

The programme was inaugurated by chief guests Abrar Ahmed, Associate, Marketing and outreach at Start-up Karnataka and Vishnu Nagaraj, founder of Carve Startup Labs and TaGD, who were also mentors and trainers of the programme. Dr Niranjan N Chiplunkar, principal of NMAMIT, Dr I Ramesh Mithanthaya, vice principal and dean Academics of NMAMIT, Dr Nagesh Prabhu, college coordinator of NAIN and HOD-EEE, Shashank Shetty, Incubation Centre Manager of NAIN and internal coordinators of NAIN, Rajath Rao, Ankitha A Nayak, Puneeth R P, Krishna Prasad Rao were present during the inaugural function.

Abrar Ahmed's addressal

Abrar Ahmed, in his inaugural speech, spoke about the E-Step initiative and said that such bootcamps are being held at 30 NAIN institutions in the state of Karnataka. He also mentioned that the bootcamp will give an overview of the current start-up system besides acting as a platform for ideation where teams will work on various ideas based on problems, solutions, competitors and customers. He said that NMAMIT has exceeded expectations in terms of the number of participants and congratulated the organisers for hosting the event.

Guest of honour, Dr I Ramesh Mithanthaya gave his best wishes for the event and also shared his past experiences as chief project leader of Entrepreneurship Development Cell. Dr Niranjan N Chiplunkar in his presidential address briefed the progress of NAIN from the year of inception, 2014. He also mentioned about the benefits of seed fundings provided by KITS for implementation of prototypes and seven NMAMIT student start-ups being scaled-up through the NAIN programme. He briefed on the importance of bootcamp in learning the essential skills and expertise to become a successful entrepreneur.

Dr Nagesh Prabhu welcomed the delegates and the participants to the event. Shashank Shetty proposed the vote of thanks. Raksha Padiyar was the master of ceremony of the inaugural event.

The inaugural Programme was followed by the team activity sessions on Ideation, Product Design and Marketing (Mock Pitching), Product Development, Sales and customer Engagement, mentor talk by a local entrepreneur, business model and information on start-up policy.

As part of mentor talk, Prajwal V Kumar, managing director and co-founder of Mangalore Robautonics Pvt Ltd and alumni of NMAMIT interacted with the young minds and shared his 15 years of experience as an entrepreneur.

Around 194 students from NMAMIT and Udupi region, staff and delegates from start-ups actively participated in the day-long event.