ENspace Online

The freshmen of the 2009 batch were welcomed by E-Cell in grand style on Monday, the 3rd of August. The E-Cell orientation featured presentations from Mahesh Murthy, the founder and CEO of Pinstorm(among the five biggest search marketing agencies in the world)  and Chetan Bhagat, the celebrated author of “Five Point Someone”.

The event kicked off with an orientation video giving students a taste of what entrepreneurship means, asking freshies to spell Entrepreneurship, and what they think it means.

Mahesh Murthy asked the students present in the audience to fire questions at him straight away. He pointed out that simply an MBA degree cannot make one an entrepreneur. In response to a question asked by a student regarding the obstacles he faced while starting his company, he said that one of the biggest challenge is the opposition from your own family, which undeniably wants to make you go for the more stable option.

He defined an entrepreneur as someone who is “unreasonable”, someone who has a different idea, and who has the intrepid spirit it takes to face the daunting challenges when choosing to follow the path of his own will.

Chetan Bhagat, as expected, was welcomed on the stage by a huge round of applause by the audience. He seemed to know the nerve of an IIT-ian, making vague references to the low ratio of females in an IIT.

He recommended the freshers to get over the euphoria of the success of JEE, taking it as a stepping stone and look forward to the next challenge in life. Recounting his days writing the book five-point-someone, he shared with the audience how he used to write from his office cubicle. When he felt that he was not doing justice to his job, he decided to devote all his time to his writing skills. Laying stress on internal happiness, he said one must make the journey the destination while striving for success. In quest for higher success, we should never miss out on making full of the small happiness of one’s life.

He further said that caring for your country is as imperative as caring for your mother. He said that reaching the Hindi readers is very important; if his books are not available in Hindi then he is not an Indian writer. He concluded by advising the students to never lose humility, pointing out that IIT-ians have a high chance of the initial success of cracking JEE getting to their head.

After Chetan Bhagat left, the Events team of E-Cell informed the students about the various E-Cell initiatives, and how freshies have the potential to participate or help in organisation of these events. Water bottles and pens marked with E-Cell logo were distributed to the students. With this, the students dispersed, delighted at meeting the most popular Indian author, and now aware of the mindset of an entrepreneur.