NEN Profile

8/3/2019 NEN Profile

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National Entrepreneurship Network (NEN)

"The economic greatness of a country is fueled by the strength and vital it y of it s entrepreneurs

- Romesh Wadhwani, President & Chairman, Wadhwani Foundation & Chairman, Symphony Technology Group

Overview

The nonprofit National Entrepreneurship Network (NEN) was founded by the Wadhwani Foundation in 2003 with

a mission to create and support high-growth entrepreneurs, driving job-creation and economic growth.

Today, NEN represents Indias largest and most vibrant entrepreneurial community. The backbone of the NEN

Community comprises more than 550 member academic institutes with 1200 entrepreneurship faculty and 400

student E Cells; NEN E Clubs, driven by the NEN Alumni and open to the public; and an emerging set of NEN

Faculty Chapters. These bodies organize an astonishing breadth and depth of programs across the country,

programs that create and support entrepreneurs. In addition, the NEN members support each other individually

to realize their entrepreneurial ambitions.

NENs members are supported by the NEN Trust. The NEN Trust, through a broad array of programs and services,

does the following: creates the community; builds the capacity of the members to run great programs; facilitates

community leadership and the interaction of different parts of the NEN Community; creates opportunities and

resources for members at the national and international levels; and runs select programs that directly support

entrepreneurs.

NEN was initiated by the Wadhwani Foundation, and co-founded by IIT Bombay; IIM Ahmedabad; BITS, Pilani; SP

Jain Institute of Management & Research, Mumbai; and the Institute of Bioinformatics and Applied

Biotechnology, Bangalore.

Impact

Since its founding in 2003, NEN has accomplished the following:

Launched more than 350 entrepreneurs

Developed a pipeline of thousands of future entrepreneurs

Proved that academic institutes in India can both create and support entrepreneurs

Transforming 550+ institutes, helping them build entrepreneurial ecosystems on campuses

Created demand for entrepreneurship education at scale, as demonstrated by membership growth:

2003 2011

NEN Member Institutes 5 (Co-founders) 569

NEN E Cells 2 408

NEN Faculty ~30 1228

NEN Member Students ~200 70,930

Created Indias largest entrepreneurial online community, with 2,50,000 registered members on

www.nenonline.org

To place these accomplishments in context: when NEN started, there were perhaps 30 faculty members in India

teaching high-growth entrepreneurship, and only two student clubs on campuses, with approximately 200

student members.


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Context

Government policies, technology innovations, and changes in consumer spending have created enormous

opportunities for economic growth in India. And while the private sector has responded, the number of jobs

created remains far short of what is required to provide adequate employment for a labour force growing at 10

million people per year. Looking more closely at the role entrepreneurs are playing one sees two limitations:

While an increasing number of individuals are choosing to become entrepreneurs, study has shown that

the number of high-growth entrepreneurs are under-represented, when compared to developed

economies

And among the current set of Indias entrepreneurs, many lack the knowledge and skills to start high-

growth companies.

NENs Strategy

NENs community-driven approach forms the basis for a model of driving entrepreneurship that is both effective

and scalable. NENs members faculty, student leaders of E Cells, and alumni leaders of E Clubs leverage the

support and resources of the NEN Trust to run programs that create and support entrepreneurs. The programs

can range from entrepreneur talks, to games and exercises, to full and short courses, mentoring, incubation, and

networking events. At any given time, hundreds of entrepreneurship activities are running across the NEN

Community. These activities, combined with the community, create and support hundreds of entrepreneurs.


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The Role of the NEN Trust

The NEN Trust runs 5 programs that develop and support the NEN Community and entrepreneurship in India in

the following ways:

Creates the NEN Community by bringing in institutional members,recruiting faculty, identifying student leaders, helping form

the E Cells and E Clubs, and recruiting experts and mentors;

Develops the capacity of its members to design, develop

and execute high-impact entrepreneurship programs,

through an integrated set of support programs;

Catalyzes and facilitates community leadership across the

network; and coordinates how the different parts of the

NEN community interact;

Creates national and international opportunities for NEN

members;

Directly supports individual entrepreneurs through select programs.

More information on the NEN Trust Programs:

Institutional Capacity Building Programs

Over the past 8 years, the NEN Trust has developed an integrated suite of services that weave together to form

NENs Institutional Capacity Building Program. This program builds the ability of its member academic institutes

to run programs that create and support entrepreneurs. NEN has found that the combination of formal courses,

online resources, and on-ground field support, over a period of 3 5 years, is required to help an academicinstitute develop the capacity to run a mature set of entrepreneurship development programs. The capacity-

building services are outlined below:

NENmemberinstitute

Consulting

FacultyDevelopment

E Leader(student e-cell

leaderdevelopment)

TeachingMaterials

ResourceBureau

(industryconnections)

E Week India

Consulting: NEN Field Team members (the NEN Campus Mentors) meet regularly with the

Directors or Principals, Faculty and Student E Leaders on campuses to help

institutes design, develop & execute entrepreneurship programs, facilitate and run

networking activities and events, and connect them to other NEN resources


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Faculty Development: NEN offers a comprehensive set of Faculty Development Courses, ranging from the

basics of entrepreneurship education to intense courses, where faculty train to

become mentors of entrepreneurs, and work with entrepreneurs as part of the

courses. These courses are offered to motivated faculty from member institutes

who lead and build high-impact entrepreneurship programs on campus. The

courses are designed and delivered by leading international and Indian faculty in

entrepreneurship, including from IIT Kanpur, IIM Calcutta, Stanfords STVP, London

Business School, Columbia University and NEN internal faculty members

NEN Press: Peer-reviewed teaching materials tailored for the South-Asian context, including

cases, exercises, videos, courses, how-tos and guides available on CDs and at

www.nenonline.org

E Leader Development: Leadership development workshops, events, and recognition for students heading

campus-based entrepreneurship cells

Resource Bureau: Access to a pool of 1000+ entrepreneurs, academicians, investors and

professionals, who have volunteered to participate in NEN member institute

programs as speakers, judges, and mentors. Program organizers can draw on theseexperts, and enlist the help of the NEN team in making the right match for their

programs

Community Building Programs

NEN 360 The NEN 360 Community Portal facilitates connections between all members of the

NEN community, and enable access to the growing resources across all the NEN E

Cells, Faculty Chapters, and E Clubs.

The NEN 360 newsletter shares community highlights across 500 institutes in hard

and soft copy, and to more than 2,00,000 NEN registered users in soft copy.

NEN Online is the Resource component of NENs online properties, providing

information on a range of topics, and facilitating access to incubators and mentors.

NEN E Clubs Supported by the secretariat at the NEN Trust, the NEN E Clubs provide dynamic

networking, skill building and peer support for the growing non-student members of

NEN.

Support for New and Future Entrepreneurs

National NEN Trust matches entrepreneurs to the most appropriate help across the NEN

Mentor Community. Depending on the entrepreneur, his or her question, stage, industry

Platform and location, the help could take any of the following forms: a one-off call or mail

with an expert; a workshop; formal 1:1 mentoring session; a short-course; or a 3-

month-long intensive mentoring engagement.

NENs National Platform

E Week India NEN runs Entrepreneurship Week India, an annual celebration and advocacy campaign

to improve the ecosystem for entrepreneurs and engage people in entrepreneurship. E

Week is an open platform that brings together most of the associations that support

entrepreneurship in India. The majority of the activity, however, is driven by students


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on NEN campuses. In February 2011, E Week India, engaged more than 6,00,000

participants in 5000 events, across 30 Indian cities. More information, along with some

great images, can be found at www.eweekindia.org

NEN Trust: Funders and Partners

The NEN Trust is primarily supported by the Wadhwani Foundation, a philanthropic initiative of Dr. Romesh

Wadhwani, Chairman of the Symphony Technology Group. The Wadhwani Foundation initiated and co-founded

NEN. In addition to the Wadhwani Foundation, NEN is honored to have launched a public-private partnership

with the Department of Science and Technology of the Government of India, with a specific focus on faculty

development. NEN is also proud of its partnerships with Goldman Sachs 10,000 Women program and the Cherie

Blair Foundation for Women.

Overview of NEN Trust Team

NEN Members of Board of Advisors

Romesh Wadhwani, Chairman, Wadhwani Foundation & Symphony Technology Group

Naina Lal Kidwai, CEO, HSBC India

Randy Komisar, Partner, Kleiner Perkins Caufield & Byers

H.K. Mittal, Advisor and Head, NSTEDB, Department of Science and Technology, Government of India

Prof. S. Sadagopan, Founder Director, IIIT Bangalore

Arun Seth, CEO, British Telecom

Kiran Mazumdar Shaw, Chairman and Managing Director, Biocon Limited

Kanwaljit Singh, Managing Director, Helion Ventures

Prof. Howard H Stevenson, Harvard Business School

Ajay Kela, President and CEO, Wadhwani Foundation

NEN Faculty Advisors

Prof. Amarnath, IIT Bombay, India

Ms. Poyni Bhat, SINE, IIT Bombay, India

Prof. Rakesh Basant, IIM Ahmedabad, India

Prof. Arya Kumar, BITS Pilani, India

Prof. Murray Low, Columbia University, USA

Prof. John Mullins, London Business School, UK

Prof. BV Phani, IIT Kanpur, India

Prof. MS Rao, S P Jain Institute of Management and Research, India

Prof. Edward Rubesch, Thammasat University, Thailand

Prof. Gayatri Saberwal, IBAB, India

Prof. Tina Seelig, Stanford University, USA

NEN Trust, Senior Executive Team

Laura Parkin, Co-Founder and CEO

Sunita Singh, Co-Founder and Senior Director

CONTACT US

If you would like to find out more about the National Entrepreneurship Network, please visit

www.nenonline.org or email us at [email protected].

NEN Profile

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