BW Disrupt Is Here, A Platform For Entrepreneurs

BW|Businessworld on Wednesday (30 December) launched a media platform for startups BW DISRUPT to capture the growing buzz of entrepreneurship in the Indian startup ecosystem.

There is an increasing number of young people who are leaving their well-paying, cushy jobs to start up on their own. The DISRUPT platform is BW|Businessworld’s effort in that direction to felicitate this spirit and handhold these young entrepreneurs in their less trodden path by providing them the right content and mentors at each stage of their entrepreneurial journey. The platform will not only cover news and development but also share sharp insights and analysis of the global trends that will impact the startup ecosystem in the country.

The event was organised at the rooftop café at #nofilter in the Safdarjung area of Delhi, known for its student crowd due to the presence of IIT Delhi in its vicinity. The 100-plus crowd of young entrepreneurs was welcomed by Annurag Batra, Chairman and Editor-in-chief of BW Businessworld, highlighting the importance of the need for several media platforms to co-exist and nurture the startup ecosystem.

The highlight of this half-day event were the three panel discussions. The first panel was on every entrepreneur’s dilemma on whether to raise funds from traditional sources or from the new-age venture capitalists. Ashish Taneja, MD of GrowX Ventures; Archit Garg, VP of Rabo Equity; Anirudh Suri, Founding Partner of India Internet Fund participated in the panel where Shailesh Vikram Singh, Executive Director, Seed Fund moderated the discussion with his sharp questions.

The next panel was on inculcating the culture of innovation in India. The discussion was led by entrepreneurs who have innovative companies or have smartly tweaked their business model for improved results. A case in point was Amit Kharbanda, MD of set top box company Mybox Technologies. He claimed, Mybox was the first company in 2008 to manufacture set top boxes in India when all the telecom operators were busy importing them from China. Another interesting example was of credit underwriting and analytics platform IndiaLends that is trying to transform the financial services infrastructure by making it easy for the unorganised market to take loans. Other entrepreneurs who added to the discussion were Sahil Baghla, co-founder of MurMur App and Vineet Singh of Buildzar.com.

This was followed by the last discussion on creativity and social impact entrepreneurship by Dr. Amit Kapoor, Chairman, The Institute of Competitiveness, Apoorva Prasad, ‎Founder, Editor-in-Chief of The Outdoor Journal, PAPA CJ, stand-up comedian, Kartik Tiwari, co-Founder, Leanchef.in, Sachin Garg, Founder, Grapevine India and Tamanna Dhamija, co-founder of Doctors for You.

With the contours of startup ecosystem changing in the country and undergoing a makeover, this is one platform you must look out for. Stay tuned for more!