Entrepreneurship begins right from Campus

Campus IMT Nagpur's Vyaktitva, Prayatna and Campus Oxygen are showing students the practical aspects of being entrepreneurs and running businesses.

IMT Nagpur's student driven initiatives, Vyaktitva, Prayatna and Campus Oxygen, groom students and initiate them into entrepreneurship. The programmes give them reality like it is. And when these managers step out into the real entrepreneurial world, they do it with the background of solid, practical experience.

Campus Oxygen has been running a successful Laundromat and provides students with services like reference material. An enterprising effort, with Reliability and Speed as its core areas, Campus Oxygen met instant success. The five member operational team conducts their business professionally, trying to minimize the complaint factor. "We have worksheets and financial records to keep track of daily transactions and cash flows," says Anumita Chakrabarti. "For me, working here has provided the practical experience of financial accounting and working capital management." Anumita is able to understand classroom concepts much better now.

A marketing student, Shriram Tarawade's professional skills are being tested at Campus Oxygen. He is busy planning email campaigns and limited time special offers. Interestingly, at the Laundromat, students can get semi dry clothes within one hour only, if they choose to.

Service of any sort is always welcome. Team Vyaktitva is convinced every human being has untapped and unlimited potential. It is their job to bring out the best in their fellow students. Through the Vyaktitva platform, they organize presentations, extempore speaking, group discussions and performance testing mock interviews. Participating students gain confidence and become better prepared for their work life. Harshad Lunavat, Vyaktitva member says, "We believe in exploring the personalities of student managers at IMT Nagpur in various aspects and dimensions. Our belief is that a group of managers with the right attitude and perspective can create wonders."

All of the above is great, but what would life be without the convenience of shopping for needs and wants especially when you are 35 kilometres from the nearest city of Nagpur? Boring. Well, not at IMT Nagpur. Its Team Prayatna runs a cooperative store. It provides IMT Nagpur students with their needs like mattresses and their wants like ice creams, potato chips, tea, coffee, and lots more.

Run like a cooperative store Pryatna has a stake holder in every IMT Nagpur student. The profits earned go back as dividend to these stake holders at the end of 18 months. Every member learns as they earn. They experience real life finance, supply chain, marketing and HR. Piyush Kukreja of team Prayatna says, "It teaches us time management too. Working as part of a team means members have to be physically present in the store and have to think of ways to improve things on campus, find new dealers, work with the old ones and get the store running. This, along with numerous case studies and class work becomes demanding." They need huge dollops of will power and energetic motivation to go on, but the experience gained is invaluable.