"WHAT?" I almost shout, while my eyes pop out.
Jason Jacob, E Cell President of St Joseph College for Arts and Science, smiles as he repeats, "800-plus events in seven days."
"Uh ..but how?" I stammer.
I expected the answer to be dramatic, but it was so simple that I ended up feeling stupid.
The e-cell has, of course, run multiple events on their own campus. But Mission Jagruthi is their trump card. 12 students, in teams of two, targeted 12 non-NEN institutes in Bangalore to promote entrepreneurship. In each, they organised 10 events for students in at least 10 classes in each college. It's a pyramid-marketing approach that companies like Amway have used to great effect. It worked for St. Joseph's as well.
As a result of Mission Jagruthi's efforts, over 5,000 non-NEN, non-St. Joseph's students gulped a decent dose of entrepreneurship and then joined in the E Week pledge.
The events the Mission Jagruthi team ran at the institutes included a business plan competition; quizzes and branding exercises; billboard design competitions; case study discussions; idea generation, product pricing, product design exercises; and debates. Each of these events was completed within one hour.
Ultimately, the response was very enthusiastic, shares Jason. In fact, in one of the testimonials, a student wrote: "I wish our teachers made learning as interesting as you all did."
St Joseph's E Cell is only three months old, but each E Cell member is driven by the spirit of entrepreneurship. As Madhuri, another E Cell member admits, the beginning of Mission Jagruthi wasn't easy. "We were chased out of seven colleges, as the institutes were not open to it. In some of the evening colleges, we were bullied by the students. But once we got down to business, they listened. We didn't give up, and now I feel that we have made a difference in the institutes we worked with," she says.
Some of the institutes visited by these students include Cathedral College, Ambedkar Evening College, St Joseph Evening College, St Joseph PUC College, Reva Institute of Technology, MLA College, National College, BHS College and Venkateshwara College.
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