Virtual lessons for budding entrepreneurs at SP Jain Institute

To give its Start Your Business (SYB) programme a national footprint and to ensure that it reaches out to more people across the country, the SP Jain Institute of Management & Research (SPJIMR), Mumbai, will deliver lectures and train participants via video-conferencing beginning this year.

“Many people from outside Mumbai and Maharashtra have been showing keen interest in the programme. Hence, we have decided to go national,” said professor M Suresh Rao, chairperson, SP Jain Centre for Entrepreneurship.

The first five days of training will be residential at SP Jain’s Mumbai campus where students/participants will be taught various aspects of entrepreneurship.

Around 40 sessions will be conducted at the campus and will include facets like understanding the mindset of an entrepreneur, evaluation of ideas and developing one’s business idea into an opportunity.

“While on campus, the participants will get to interact and network with venture capitalists and established entrepreneurs. They will also have the opportunity to network among themselves,” added Rao.

The remaining 60 sessions will be conducted through video-conferencing where participants, from any part of the country, will connect to a central facility in Mumbai. The sessions will be interactive, two-way and in real-time. The virtual class sessions will involve marketing, financial and legal aspects of a start-up.

The participants will subsequently have to give presentations on their business plan. The entire programme will be spread over six months and the first batch will commence on October 15. The institute plans to take in around 50 students for the first batch.