25 June 2014, Le Meridien, Coimbatore

The 15th Edition of ICTACT Bridge 2014, titled as Technology & Entrepreneurship Summit, conducted at Le Meridien, Coimbatore on 25 June 2014, witnessed a greater participation from the academia, industry and representatives from the Government.

Mr. Purushothaman, Senior Director NASSCOM, welcomed the speakers and guests and set the context for the day stating that everywhere there is a huge talk about technology, entrepreneurship and the combination of both that has taken a center-stage and has become the factor that widens the market size in all its dimensions, pumping in revenue and breathing life to a new form of self-sustained economy.

Dr. Nandini Rangaswamy, Managing Director, Chandra Group laid down an evolution of definitions that have been mapped with an entrepreneur, and stated that entrepreneurship as a career today has lots of scope for youth to venture into. She further stated that industry should also help the younger generation in incubating entrepreneurship in the country right from the institutions, and this shall be done through utilising the CSR spend of the industry for the purpose. She emphasised that creating a huge number of job providers should be the focus for the future which will ensure an economically empowered India.

Dr. Manickam, Executive Vice Chairman, Sakthi Sugars defined entrepreneur as an individual with a vision defined by oneself. A person who has the ability to see an opportunity when facing a calamity, and the one who opens new avenues with all courage and leaves the world a better place than what it was. He quoted the life of Napoleon Bonaparte to establish that he as an entrepreneur has contributed for a global change in many aspects that have relevance to the modern day entrepreneurs in foreseeing the future, building a venture into a phenomenon that is eternal in the business sense, and that adds value to the society and people.

Mr. Lakshmi Narayanan, Chairman, ICT Academy of Tamil Nadu thanked the speakers who spoke prior to him, and ran a brief of the expansion of ICT Academy of Tamil Nadu in invigorating inclusive growth in the state. Then he touched upon innovation and entrepreneurship. He spoke about how technology industry has become a part of every industry. The Chairman dissected through the impact that technology is created through its inevitable presence in every type of industry and every type of profession. Particularly he stressed upon the need for an entrepreneur in being adaptive to change in order to be at the forefront in the industry.