India National Competition Highlights

One of the unique features of the Enactus program is connecting business leaders and students in a meaningful way around a shared cause. Watching the Enactus India National Competition unfold over social media, you were struck by how the event was the perfect example of this. Over 130 leading executives participated in the competition, which took place 1 and 2 July at the Taj Lands Ends in Mumbai. They served as judges in the three rounds of competition, participated in panel discussions to share their views and experiences with the students, and showed their support with messages on social media.

Event sponsors KPMG and SYNTEL were particularly active, tweeting good luck messages at the start of the competition and welcoming delegates to the event. SYNTEL also issued a congratulations press release at the conclusion of the competition, which you can read here. Having such robust corporate participation provided the perfect opportunity to harness the experience and insight of those in attendance through a series of panel discussions that focused on important issues. The first panel discussed empowering the differently-abled and included executives from Coca-Cola India, ICICI Securities, The Lemon Tree Hotel Company, AIF, and IBM. The second panel, with executives from KPMG, Tata Sons, Mahindra, and Hewlett Packard, focused on business ethics and offered each speaker the chance to offer their own thoughts and experiences on the topic. At the conclusion of the panel, Richard Rekhy, CEO of KPMG India, announced a special business ethics grant for Enactus India teams.

Delegates also had the chance to hear from two keynote speakers representing the Indian business community. Before the final round of competition, Prashant Ranade, Vice Chairman of SYNTEL, discussed entrepreneurship and the important role technology and innovation will play in business creation. Rajeev Dubey, President HR, Corporate Services & After-Market of Mahindra & Mahindra, addressed delegates before the results were announced and shared his views on the challenges and opportunities in creating tomorrow’s company. Other special guests from the business community were Rajneesh Kumar, Vice President, Corporate Affairs of Walmart India; Jerry Jose, General Manager – Leadership Development of Unilever South Asia; Roland Landers, Head Corporate Brand of Zee Entertainment Ltd.; and Debjani Ghosh, Managing Director, South Asia of Intel Corporation.

More than 650 students attended the event with 37 universities vying for the National Champion title across three rounds of competition. In the end, the 26 final round judges named the Enactus team from Shaheed Sukhdev College of Business Studies the winner. Judges were impressed with their portfolio of projects including Project Sanitation Solutions, which ensures the use of hygienic sanitary napkins by women in slums and villages across India while providing them a sustained means of livelihood and a better standard of living; Project Akshar, which empowers the physically disabled and victims of drug abuse to be entrepreneurs by producing and selling eco-friendly notebooks; and Project Gramoddhar, which brings socio economic development to the village of Ghamroj by running simultaneous business models, aptly targeting the many needs of one population.