Fabulous celebrations took place in all cities - candle lighting ceremonies; Pledge sessions; fabulous talks by student entrepreneurs, start up entrepreneurs, social entrepreneurs; games and contests.

Glimpses from across the country:

Kolkata

St. Xavier's kicked off E Week at 8:30 a.m., with a huge session of 1,000 students. An incredibly moving moment when all 1000 students took the Pledge in unison! Wish we could all have heard it - it must have been incredible. In Kolkata there were 8 different opening ceremonies on Saturday, with more planned for Monday!

Hyderabad

NIFT had a full morning of activity, with 2 IIM graduate entrepreneurs sharing their entrepreneurial journey and choices; a hot debate; and an idea generation exercise. Malla Reddy Institute of Management also opened E Week on their campus through a grand ceremony including all members of the staff and students.

Chennai

MOP Vaishnav held an event for students from over 10 institutes, with a talk from Dr. Nirmala Prasad to launch E Week, the topic: "New Generation Entrepreneurs and Tourism".

Trichy

JJ College of Engineering and Technology launched their 6 day entrepreneurship extravaganza Deeksha 07, with the students taking the Pledge. The 6 days of activities include business plan competitions, idea generation, quizzes, audio visual games, and more!

Bangalore

The young women of Mount Carmel held a moving ceremony of lamp lighting, and then spread the flame of entrepreneurship throughout the auditorium, lighting candles held by all the students, who then took the Pledge. Jyothi Nivas students took the Pledge under the blue Bangalore skies before hearing a talk by 2 student entrepreneurs and a social entrepreneur, Jayant Shah. Sir MVIT students launched a music video they made on entrepreneurship - we will soon be getting a copy and uploading it here. We hear it was fantastic!!I IIT-B students heard from 3 entrepreneurs who had been incubated in their very own institute!

Pune

SCHMRD had the pleasure of having Dr. V.G. Patel, founder Director of Entrepreneurship Development Institute of India. This icon of entrepreneurship development discussed the fact that India is in the hands of this next generation of entrepreneurs - and will never be the same.

Bhubaneshwar

XIMB flagged off E Week with an opening ceremony on their campus premises involving students and faculty alike.

Pilani

BITS student opened E Week with an Inauguration Ceremony presided by the Vice-Chancellor of BITS Pilani, Prof. L K Maheshwari, and in inspiring talk by Dr B P Agarwal, internationally recognized for rapid commercialization of technologies. He spoke on management of innovations gave a talk on Manangement of innovations and entrepreneurship.

Mumbai

6 Opening Ceremonies took place across Mumbai. The MET students heard from entrepreneurs and also took the Pledge - we received some great photos of the session, which we will share on the site!

Over the past two days, activities in various participant institutes built on the theme of 'learning through fun' in interactive events, competitions, games, panel discussions and entrepreneurs' talks. The participation in the pledge and one-liner awareness campaigns continues to underscore the nationwide impact.

Glimpses from across the country:

Hyderabad

Various colleges are selecting different days to take the pledge in unison in a dedicated event. After the opening day, Monday witnessed David Memorial Degree and PG College students take the pledge and display their badges and stickers demonstrating their support for E Week. Several other institutes have picked days in the rest of the week to take the pledge. NIFT, XVJIM, MRIM and David Memorial have all initiated activities on campus and continue to collect one-liner entries as part of the warm-up activities. We will be updating their tallies to the overall signatures and one-liner entries as they happen.

Kolkata

Several institutes including DA College, RKMC, FBS and FIEM have chosen E Week as the perfect backdrop to form and officially launch e-cells on their campus over this week. Idea Generation sessions and management games were the main highlights of these events where one-liners were submitted and the pledge was collectively taken.

Pune

On Monday, St. Mira's college was engaged in a goal setting exercise where they had to reset, adjust or completely change their goals based on the constraints they encountered. The event was received with great enthusiasm and participation making it a huge success.

On the same day, SIMS hosted an entrepreneur interaction session with the CEO of Shramik Group, Mr. Rajeev Kher. He spoke at length about his experiences and the importance of entrepreneurs to the nation's economy. The 250+ students gathered there asked a lot of questions came away learning a lot about being a successful entrepreneur

Chennai & Trichy

Apart from the staggering 3000+ pledges taken over these past two days, several events have kicked off in colleges across the city. JJ College in Trichy launched their E Week event, Deeksha 07 with a big bang. 150 students have registered their names for competitions, where more people continue to take the pledge. This event has invited 48 colleges to participate.

Mumbai

The Jamnalal Bajaj Institute of Management Studies organized a Business Plan workshop led by Ms. Purvi Sheth, VP Shilputsi Consultants on Feb 26. Through an experiential learning session this was aimed at cultivating hands on learning experience. The St. Xavier's College students, on the same day, learnt from the experiences of Indigo Chain of Restaurants owner, Mr. Rahul Akerkar during an entrepreneurial speaker session.

Bangalore

On Monday, Sir MVIT students got a taste of experiential learning to hone their entrepreneurial soft skills through fun games and activities conducted by Pegasus, a leading outbound training company. The games closed with a discussion between the students and new and successful entrepreneurs about various aspects of entrepreneurship.

The Institute of Bioinformatics and Applied Biotechnology (IBAB), on Monday, organized a fun and puzzle activity where students formed mock companies, and learnt to trade with other companies. The objective of the activity was to provide a mock experience of real-life entrepreneurship to students.

New Awards Instituted!

The extraordinary effort by many, many institutes across India as students and faculty have embraced the spirit of E Week has been incredible. The activity has been so amazing that it has been decided that we must recognize these outstanding efforts. Therefore we have instituted a new set of Awards: E Week Champions.

These awards are being given to those institutes and organizations that, in our judgment, have shown us all the possibilities of E Week. Institutes that have

	mobilized all corners of their campuses,
	huge numbers of faculty and most of their students participating,
	demonstrated extraordinary creativity
	led activities for multiple institutes.

Glimpses from across the country:

Hyderabad

As their first E Week celebration, Institute of Hotel Management students launched their E Cell on Wednesday. Hyderabad's leading restaurateur Shankar Krishnamurthy, the proprietor of Fusion 9, Grill Room and Deli 9, led a lively inaugural session bringing out the trials and tribulations of an entrepreneur having to choose between a secure career and starting a business.

Kolkata

On March 1, EIILM developed the '8th Wonder of the World' in their idea generation workshop tracing the journey of a ball that grows from a 'crazy ball' to a destructive bomb and finally turns into the revolutionary entrepreneurship ball that saves the world!

Seven other events took place across different institutes with students generating hundreds of one-liners for the awareness campaigns.

Pune

Three extraordinary women entrepreneurs led a panel discussion on entrepreneurship in the fields of air-conditioner refurbishing, scooter servicing and repair. These women of substance talked about their unconventional business choices inspiring the St. Mira's girls to build the right skills and entrepreneurial attitude in life. The faculty leader Dr. Shobha Dadlani explains, "EDC was an activity till recently. It has now become a movement".

Chennai

Velammal Engineering formally launched their E-cell with 90 students in the core team to represent each of the departments on campus. Besides the pledge reading, 200 students participated in the launch event. Facilitated by BYST, Mr. W. Amarnath, MD, Sri Sankara Weaving led a talk for the students of Velammal College of Management and Computer Studies, followed by Pitch and Win, the NEN- led activity.

Delhi

IIMT Gurgaon and JIMS in Rohini have conducted various E Week activities including entrepreneurs' talks showcasing new IT companies like pagalguy.com and others. IIT Delhi held a panel discussion on "Idea to Start Up", followed by a talk by techTribe CEO, Rohit Agarwal.

Mumbai

On Feb 28, SPJIMR hosted the E Week celebration for four institutes including Bhavan's College and SPCE. More than 200 students, faculty and Institute Directors gathered for a moving ceremony and Pledge taking. Following the ceremony, students watched the Union Budget unveiling and engaged with economists and faculty to analyze it from the entrepreneur's perspective.

ITM Business School in Navi Mumbai continued its stream of creative programs and held an innovation challenge game encouraging 40 student teams to devise viable products made out of grass, stones, leaves and other seemingly unworthy materials. Students came up with some fascinating prototypes!

Exciting Events Coming up:

Bangalore E Fest!

Four colleges- Sir MVIT, Mount Carmel, MSRIT and Jyothi Nivas are gearing up for E- Fest on March 3, Saturday, hosted at the JNC campus. Everything ranging from exhibitions, posters, street plays, crazy business ideas and games will be held throughout the day.

E Week GRAND FINALE, All Fired Up, Bangalore

On Saturday, March 3, NEN presents All Fired Up! The Grand Finale of the first-ever Entrepreneurship Week India at St. Joseph's Indian High School, 6.30pm. We would love for each NEN member across India to attend but we know there may be travel constraints. However, we do look forward to seeing everyone from Bangalore at the event.

The evening opened to inspirational words from our keynote speaker, Kiran Mazumdar Shaw, CMD, Biocon, urging young people on to entrepreneurship, explaining that many more jobs are created by entrepreneurs than by any other means. Dr. Mazumdar Shaw also said that she would love to be a young entrepreneur in today's India!

Nritarutya dancers captured and built on the excitement through spectacular performances preceding each category announcement, infusing the evening with great energy.

After all the Awards were presented, and as dusk gave way to nightfall, everyone joined together to light candles as a symbolic act of celebrating the fire ignited in each one of us through this initiative, and, led by Dr. Mazumdar Shaw, took the Pledge one last time.

Snapshots of activities organized across the nation were flashed on the big screen for everyone to witness the reach of E week as music rocked the air, setting the tone for the final close. We will be posting pictures on NEN Online, shortly.

A grand fireworks display lit up the night sky as we bade farewell to Entrepreneurship Week 2007 with a promise to come back with an even bigger bang next year!

The E Week Events, Activities and Online Contest Winners were announced and awarded and the grand ceremony. You can view a full list here.

Glimpses from across the country:

Mumbai

Along with 9 colleges from around the city and Pune, IIT Bombay closed E Week on their campus through an interactive session about Entrepreneurship. They discussed the structure, utility and purpose of the institute's E Cell, and a talk from an incubatee and former student, Rohit Nalwade, Convis Technologies, who is now an entrepreneur himself, further reiterated these benefits.

The final closing involved motivational talks by guest speakers - Mr. Prahlad Kakkar, ad filmmaker and serial entrepreneur, and Mr. Sunil Gulati, group president, YES bank. Encapsulating the journey of an entrepreneur from learning to realization through these sessions, the event ended E Week on campus with a networking dinner allowing participants to interact with the special guests.

Pune

PVG College of Engineering closed E Week with a Business Plan competition for the students, while SIMS ended E Week through a trade fest for the student members.

SCMHRD hosted a Closing ceremony on their premises with Commander D. D. Naik, MD, Millennium Motors Pvt. Ltd. as the Chief Guest. Small Entrepreneurs from around the campus including a nearby juice bar owner were felicitated at the ceremony to loud cheers from the students.

Chennai

The closing day of E Week, March 3 saw the Final round of the Fun and Focus Marketing contest hosted by IFMR, where 5 teams made it to the final round. The judges, Prof. S. Ramachander, Ex-Director -IFMR, and Mr. Sathish Kumar, MD & CEO of Henkel India Ltd., gave cash prizes to Velammal College of Management and Computer Studies who were the first prize winners and Women's Christian College, who were the runner's up.

All participants were given certificates, books and CDs from Kaybase along with gift hampers from Henkel India. The highlight: Kaybase is already implementing some of the ideas and suggestions that were generated through these presentations for their Fun and Focus Online Children's Magazine!

Pilani

As part of the E Week Global Innovation Challenge, the CEL team of BITS-Pilani brainstormed, fought and celebrated their moments as they tried to add value to the selected product of the challenge - Post It notes. The NEN crew which came down to campus captured heated moments of these efforts.

The energy and excitement of E Week culminated in a closing day that was dedicated to celebration for the winners of all the contests held on campus during the week, a day for the CEL faculty and students to rejoice in the memories of the exciting week that was and a day for thousands of BITSians to take forward the momentum they have gained and the energy infused into their minds as a part of the first ever Entrepreneurship Week.

Over the seven days of E week - India, they organized events and activities for their employees and members and raised the awareness about entrepreneurship among all of them.

Glimpses:

TiE Delhi launched E Week with the "Legends and Leaders" lecture series at Indian Institute of Foreign Trade campus. More than 200 students and members from IIFT, Amity, IIT Delhi and EMPI participated. NASSCOM President Kiran Karnik held a special session and talked about the importance of entrepreneurial learning among students and how that is influencing students' career choices.

Saurabh Srivastava , the Head of both TiE Delhi and the IVCA shared his entrepreneurial journey from a humble, middle class family background to being one of the most sought after investors

Mahindra & Mahindra successfully ran E Week at their organization. Their E Week initiative, the Maalamaal Idea Contest for employees, received 70 entries in the just a day and a half!

E week posters were put up all over the company premises and several employees proudly displayed their badges. Several M&M employees signed the pledge online as well.

Himalaya Herbal Healthcare has displayed E Week posters and pledge stickers in their healthcare stores across India! Anyone could pick up the E Week stickers from a Himalaya store close to them.

PVR Cinemas have E Week banners and slides in 14 theaters across Mumbai, Hyderabad, Bangalore and Delhi.

HSBC encouraged over 3,000 employees across India through email campaigns, intranet, and posters to participate in E Week awareness campaigns. Many people from Mumbai, Delhi, Bangalore, Kolkata and Nagpur submitted one-liners and signed the pledge. HSBC also provided some interesting speakers to student events - and are willing to do this on a long term basis!