Passion is incomplete without compassion: Dr. Rai

I5 Summit 2020 Begins Virtually

Central India’s largest entrepreneurship summit—The i5 Summit 2020 began at IIM Indore on October 02, 2020. The three-day event, jointly organized by IIM Indore and IIT Indore will witness various events including Speaker Series, Panel Discussion, Entrepreneurship Workshop, Start-up Expo, Pitch Deck Designing & Finance Workshop and Chai Pe Charcha. The first day of the Summit began with the lighting of the lamp in the inaugural ceremony by Dr. Himanshu Rai, Director, IIM Indore.

Dr. Rai then delivered the Keynote Address. He spoke about the auspicious starting of the event on Mahatma Gandhi’s birthday and shared learnings that entrepreneurs can derive from Gandhi’s life. The 3 P’s- Purpose, Passion and Perseverance, are ideas that embodied Gandhi and should be words every entrepreneur should live by. To quote Dr. Rai, “Passion is incomplete without compassion.”

This was followed by the Speaker Series, with the first speaker as the illustrious Mr. Kris Gopalakrishnan, Founder and Former CEO of Infosys. Mr. Gopalakrishnan spoke about how Science-Fiction novels of the past have become a reality now- “Technology is no longer about the future; it is about the now.”

He also attributed the continued operation of many non-tech industries like healthcare, education to technology and the intelligence revolution sweeping through India; especially India’s startup community. He concluded the engaging talk with a question for the attendees to ponder upon –“Do you want to Live in a Better India, or do you want to Build a Better India?”

This was followed by a Q&A based Interactive talk from Ms. Neha Motwani, Co-Founder and CEO of Fitternity, India’s largest fitness marketplace. She spoke about how her entrepreneurial journey started out with a very data-based and a problem-solving approach in bridging the gap between the consumer and fitness infrastructure like gyms or studios that were being underutilized.

She described various facets of Fitternity’s business journey elaborating how in the Covid-pandemic, Fitternity is involved in “bringing the best of global fitness to your house.” Noting the distinct the distinct lack of female entrepreneurs, Ms. Motwani also highlighted groups and communities that aim to provide a support system and mentorship for and by female entrepreneurs in India.

The speaker series continued with Mr. Rahool Pai Panandiker, who talked about the importance of building resilience in the current times. He initiated the discussion by mentioning his idols for resilience, Mahatma Gandhi and Nelson Mandela, and how one can also find instances of resilience in nature.

He defined resilience as the capacity to absorb shock, recover better, thrive and create competitive advantage after the storm has passed. He talked about how leaders can inculcate the mantra of resilience to move forward. He mentioned how fundamental it is for companies to decode ways they can develop a contingency plan to absorb the shockwaves of disruptions such as that of COVID-19. 

He further went on to elaborate the 6 factors that drive resilience – Prudence, Redundancy, Diversity, Modularity, Embeddedness and Adaptivity. His insightful talk was followed by inquisitive questions from the audience.

The first day of the Summit concluded with lots of enthusiasm among the youngmanagement minds and entrepreneurs. The day provided a platform for theparticipants not only to present their ideas to the stalwarts but also learn from theirexperiences.

The second day of the Summit would have a Panel Discussion with industry leaders like Venkatesh Sarvasiddhi, Girish Ananthanarayanan, Ranjan Singh and Sonam Wangchuk interacting with IIM Indore’s very own director Dr. Himanshu Rai and Prof. Sneha Thapliyal. It will have some more Speaker sessions by Dr. Hariprasad, Mr. Vivek Bajaj and Mr. Shantanu Deshpande.