Bhopal, Jan 31: Entrepreneurship and the entrepreneurial ecosystem in India are expected to receive a major boost as India's second Entrepreneurship Week takes off from Feb 2-9. E-Week India, a weeklong public awareness campaign, is aimed at celebrating the opportunities in today's India and improving the ecosystem for entrepreneurship in the country. E-Week 2008 builds on the resounding success of the first E Week 2007, run at the initiation of the not for profit organisation, National Entrepreneurship Network (NEN).

NEN will be co-hosting E Week 2008 with over 270 member colleges from across the country along with entrepreneur support associations such as The Indus Entrepreneurs (TiE), India Venture Capital Association (IVCA), Indian Angel Network (IAN), Proto.in and Dare. E Week 2008 is supported by corporate sponsors including HSBC, Himalaya and Symphony Services.

As part of the weeklong celebrations, E Week India 2008 aims to bring over 2,00,000 people including students, faculty, entrepreneurs, investors and other experts together through more than 1800 entrepreneurship activities across 30 cities and towns. Activities include panel discussions, entrepreneur leadership talks, live case studies, creative entrepreneurial games, film screenings, street plays, entrepreneurship bazaars etc. NEN will be also be honouring the 'Champion' institutes - those that best embody the Spirit of E Week 2008.

According to Anupam Chouksey, Director, Lakshmi Narain College of Technology (LNCT), Bhopal, "'While India offers amazing opportunities for entrepreneurs today, the culture and ecosystem still throw up tremendous barriers. The entrepreneurship ecosystem in India i.e. academia, companies, start-up companies, government, angel investors and others need to rally together to help break down these barriers and provide young people both the vision as well as practical knowledge on the road to entrepreneurship. E Week India will act as a catalyst to help young people helps think beyond "mainstream" careers and their immediate environs."

Sridhar Iyengar, President Elect TiE (The Indus Entrepreneurs) Mumbai, said, "At TiE, it is our mission to foster entrepreneurship and we are delighted to partner with NEN in this exciting nationwide celebration of entrepreneurship. Through E Week, TiE and NEN intend to connect present entrepreneurs to future ones. In addition, E-Week also presents a platform for budding entrepreneurs to come together and exchange notes and ideas."

E Week India 2008's nation-wide Pledge campaign would also be centred on the theme of industry academia partnership, bringing thousands of people to make at least ONE promise to support entrepreneurship in India.

Tribal students to get computer training

By Our Staff Reporter

Bhopal, Jan 31: Entrepreneur Development Institute would imparted training of accounts on computer free of cost to the girls and boys belonging to scheduled tribes. This three-month training would be organised in nine districts. The application forms for this training have been invited by February 20, 2008. Duration of the training session would be two hours daily.

The district where accounts training on computer would be organised for tribal boys and girls include Bhopal, Indore, Jabalpur, Khandwa, Rewa, Dhar, Chhindwara, Betul and Khargone. Eligibility for the training programme includes that the applicant should be a domicile of Madhya Pradesh, must belong to schedule tribes, must have passed class XII with commerce subject and his maximum age as on January 1 should be 25 years.

The applicant should clearly write his name, his father's name, date of birth, tribe's name, address for correspondence, details of marks obtained in class XII, name of the college where the applicant is studying (in case he or she is student) and applicant's signature.