The Goa State Innovation Council (GSInC) in association with SEEDS organized a BOOTCAMP on Innovation at Don Bosco College of Engineering
On 27 January 2018, the Goa State Innovation Council (GSInC) in association with SEEDS organized a BOOTCAMP on Innovation at Don Bosco College of Engineering – Fatorda. The event began with an address by Mr. Sudip Faldesai, Project Officer at GSInC, in which he introduced the concept of innovation to the students and how the national innovation council which is a part of Government of India, aims to create a system in order to encourage young talent and ideas and boost the innovation in the state. He informed the students that new job openings are very less in the country and there is a huge competition for jobs and that GSInC holds the Chief Minister start up award which helps the winners get funds to put their ideas into practice and also set up incubation centres.
The first speaker of the event was, Ms. Farheen Sayed, who narrated the story of how she founded her own start ups- “Brushfix” and “Boxifer”, the latter of which had won her the prestigious Chief Minister Yojana start up award. She explained the steps to be taken to create an entrepreneur. She spoke at length about the increase in rate in development of start ups in India and how important it is to take in to consideration the ease of accessibility of one’s business so as to appeal people of different ages. After the question and answer session with the audience, the next speaker was Mr. Gareth Almeida, one of the co-founders of “Garage Guy”. He explained that garage guy is an app which informs about servicing and maintenance of one’s vehicle. He also spoke about how the main aim of his start up is to revolutionize the automobile market by providing an app to make service appointments, give reminders as well as an online platform for purchasing automobile parts and accessories, and for people to talk to one another and offer automobile related advice. Besides this, they also hold campaigns to promote safety awareness like “100 days” and “50 days”, and offer deals on services like car washes. He emphasized on how important it is to change one’s lens of perception in order to identify opportunities and how to make ideas happen with sufficient business planning, market research and proper execution in order to establish the real potential of one’s product. The students enthusiastically took part in the question-answer round. The next speaker was Mr. Tushar Sawant who spoke about the qualifications and eligibility for the various aids given to start ups like subsidies, loans and the Prime Minister Yojana. These qualifications included age and money (income) limits and educational qualifications as well as implementing agencies and areas and selection of beneficiaries.
The second half of the event commenced with Mr. Sushant Surlakar, the chief coach, who spoke to the students about the various processes required in setting up an Enterprise, which included marketing strategies and sales techniques. Some of the techniques could also be used for other aspects like SWOT analysis (Strengths, Weakness, Opportunity, Threats). He made a quote saying “A goal without a timeline is a dream” and asked the students to give themselves goals in time and keep a check on reality. After this , the students were grouped according to their departments and were asked to create a project idea from scratch with emphasis on creativity, manufacturing cost, model design, tagline, total income, etc. They were then judged by Mr. Sudip Faldesai and Mr. Sanford Mascarenhas. FE Civil was declared the winners. The event ended with Renvick Fernandes proposing the vote of thanks.
Overall, the event was a huge success and really helped in enlightening the students on prospects of being an entrepreneur , as well as giving them clarity and confidence to put their ideas into practice on their journey they will have to take to get there.
