by sachin sharma manipal jaipur

1. MANIPAL UNIVERSITY
JAIPUR
SCHOOL OF BUSINESS & COMMERCE
BBA
ENTREPRENEURSHIP MANAGEMENT
SUBMITTED BY SUBMITTED TO
Arpit Murarka MS. Archana Poonia
161001021 Department Of
B.B.A(A) Business Administration
2ND Year
2017-2018

2. Acknowledgement
“I have taken efforts in this project. However, it would not have been possible without the kind
support and help of many individuals and organization .I would like to extend my sincere thanks
to all of them.
I am highly indebted to Ms. Archana Poonia for his guidance and constant supervision as well as
for providing necessary information regarding the project & also for his support in completing
the project.
My thanks and appreciations also go to my classmates in developing the project and people who
have willingly helped me out with their abilities.’’
Declaration
I hereby declare that the assignment entitled Entrepreneurship Management Submitted to
Ms. Archana Poonia Department of Business Administrator, School of Business And
Commerce, is my original work and the project has not formed the basis for the award
of any degree, associate ship, fellowship or other similar titles

3. Contents
1 DIGITAL INDIA
2 STAND UP INDIA
3 MAKE IN INDIA
4 START UP INDIA
5 SKILL INDIA
6 BOOK SUMMARY
7 ABOUT AUTHOR RASHMI BANSAL
8 FIVE ENTRIPRENEURS

4. Summary Of Stay Hungry Stay Foolish
Rashmi Bansasl
Writing books in India is a mug’s game. The economics of publishing is stacked up so heavily
against the writers that hardly one in ten makes any money. The advance and royalty receipts
often barely cover travel and logistics expenses if it is a work of non-fiction. Nevertheless,
people with intellectual pretensions and journalists in particular, with literary ambitions are
drawn to book writing like moth to fire.Broadly, four categories of books seem to stand the best
chance of monetary success in India today. An exceptional, and widely acclaimed work of fiction
such as Arundhati Roy’s God of Small hings; Shobha De’s soft porn (she marches on despite
Literotica.com, Asstr.org and a million other virtual avenues of orgasm, but we digress);
“inclusive” fiction of the Chetan Bhagat variety (Five Point Some One and A Night at A Call
Center) that is nothing but a puerile and pedestrian potboilers.
Its sells because the plots revolve around, and reach out to the new Indian army of jocks who are
trained to write complex computer codes better than a simple, grammatically correct sentence;
and the fourth of course is corporate hagiographies.
The Mumbai-based media entrepreneur and journalist Rashmi Bansal, it appears, has cracked the
formula. Her recent book Stay Hungry Stay Foolish is the story of 25 graduates of India’s

5. Harvard, IIM Ahmedabad (IIM-A), who chose to become entrepreneurs, shunning the more
conventional and comfortable option of high-paying corporate jobs. Now, IIM-A is Bansal’s
alma mater as well, and that explains several things—not just her business acumen. In writing
this book, she is clearly inspired by Chetan Bhagat who incidentally went to IIM-A as well.
Bansal wants to be the Bhagat of business writing. Imitation is the best form of flattery, but she
could sure The chapter eulogizing Deep Kalra, the founder of the online travel portal
Makemytrip starts thus: “Deep Kalra is your average Delhi Dude. Deep grew up in a typical
private sector home; very comfortable. But it was very clear from the beginning – agar kuch
banana hai to khud he banana hai.” Since the book is primarily a regurgitation of quotes, and
plain transcript of interview tapes, it makes these IIM-A grads, and highly successful
businessmen sound extremely inarticulate, nave and inelegant. The selection is a nice mix of the
old and the sunrise businesses. There’s a hotelier, a water tank maker, a drug maker, a sugar
baron, and even social sector entrepreneurs alongside the better-know IT and internet guys. If
you are a B-school students, willing to mine deep, and of a tolerant disposition towards poor
turns of phrase, you could possibly find some case study worthy material in the book.
About Rashmi Bansal
Bansal grew up at the Tata Institute of Fundamental Research in South Mumbaiwhere
her father was an astrophysicist. After attending St Joseph's High School in Colaba, she
studied at Sophia College for Womenbefore earning an MBA in 1993 from the Indian
Institute of Management Ahmedabad.
On graduating from IIM, she first worked as a brand manager for the Times of India.
After developing a youth page for The Independent, she went on to found JAM (Just
Another Magazine), a youth magazine in collaboration with her husband Yatin Bansal.

6. She was inspired to write Stay Hungry Stay Foolish (2008) by Rakesh Basant, a professor
at IIM Ahmedabad who suggested she should cover the experiences of 25
entrepreneurs from the school. It turned out to be so successful that 100,000 copies
were sold in the first 10 months, eventually recording sales of over 350,000. Her next
book, Connect the Dots (2010), traced the progress of entrepreneurs without the MBA
qualification. It also proved to be a best seller.
Her I Have a Dream (2011) focused on social entrepreneurs, introducing an interesting
mix of English and Hindi, popularly known as Hinglish, in an attempt to add a more
realistic account of her personalities.
In an interview with Heather Timmons of the New York Times, Bansal explained she
decided to use Hinglish as it provides a more direct representation of people's voices
and "makes them more real".More recently, Bansal has written another four bestsellers
on entrepreneurs: Poor Little Rich Slum, Follow Every RainboW Take Me Home and Arise
Awake.
All are concerned with entrepreneurship with advice on how to succeed. She frequently
illustrates her ideas with accounts of those who have risen to unexpected heights.
Rashmi Bansal Life AsThe Entrepreneur
In addition to ideating, editing and providing direction to the magazine I also occasionally
write for it. I am primarily an editorial person but my marketing background helps in
conceptualising youth oriented promotions that JAM undertakes.During her stint with
Times of India, she had started a youth page in ‘The Independent’ newspaper (now
defunct). This page went on to become really popular which made her realise that, there
barely was anything for the youth.This gave her a brilliant idea that – Why just a page,
when you can dedicate a whole magazine to youth.
Hence, without wasting much time; with a capital investment of just Rs. 50,000, along with
a team of few like-minded friends and her husband in 1995, JAM was born.
So what was JAM?
In the simplest terms, Just Another Magazine or as they like to call it – JAM, was a
magazine Of, For and By young people! The beauty of JAM was that, they not only
provided youth centric content, but also nurtured talented young people who wished to be
a part of the industry, preferably & mostly students from colleges across India.
Rashmi was adamant about what stepshe had taken and she decided to stick to her
decision. She being a youth herself believed that, JAM used to keepher closely connected

7. with the youth, their hopes, dreams and could easily understand their needs or desires as
well.And in a matter of 10 years, she has brought JAM to a scale where it is now become
India’s largest youth magazine. After years of hard work and efforts to build a stable JAM,
once she thought that she could try her hand at something else, Rashmi while playing her
hand at entrepreneurship, also started JobOkPlease.
Well as the name itself suggests that it was a job portal. The primary focus or Unique
Selling Point was their target audience of the under-served niche category i.e. the students
and fresh graduates.Unlike many other competitors back then, there were not many
opportunities for the youth who were looking for a part-time / freelance or a summer job.
And yet again, it turned out to be a HIT.Her third entrepreneurial stint came in after she
transformed herself into a successful Author.
After she became a renowned author, she decided to transform Authorship into
Entrepreneurship.
How? Well, she launched Bloody Good Book.
That gave her the idea to start an independent platform the masses would decide what they
want to read and like to read.
Their process was very simple. All, a writer had to do was –
 Submit their manuscript to Bloody Good Books.
 It goes through basic editorial control exercise
 After which, the first three chapters get shared online with readers and reviewers.
 And the 10 best reviews and 10 most popular books are reviewed every month.
 Lastly, being a relatively small publisher, approximately five books get published in
a year.

8. SANJEDEV BIKHCHANDANI
Bornin 1963 – Sanjeev Bikhchandani is the Founderandnow the Executive Chairman ofInfo
Edge, one of the most dependable Internet Ventures in India and the owner of Naukri.com
India’slargest jobportal. It is also known to bethe first Internet Companyto list onthe Indian
stock exchanges.
Other than that; Info Edge also owns web sites like Jeevansathi.com, 99acres.com, Brijj.com,
Naukrigulf.com, Shiksha.com, Quadrangle and Firstnaukri.com as well.
Additionally, Info Edge also holds a major stake in a range of companies including – Zomato
Media Private Limited (www.zomato.com), Applect Learning Systems Private Limited
(www.meritnation.com), Etechaces Marketing and Consulting Private Limited
(www.policybazaar.com), Kinobeo Software Private Limited (www.mydala.com), Happily
Unmarried Marketing Private Limited (www.happilyunmarried.com), Canvera Digital
Technologies Private Limited (www.canvera.com) and Mint Bird technologies Private
Limited (www.vacationlabs.com).
A frequent speaker at conferences and business schools, Board Member of The Indus
Entrepreneurs (TiE) in Delhi and a member of the Global Board of Trustees of The Indus
Entrepreneurs; personally, Sanjeev holds a Post Graduate Diploma in Management and
Entrepreneurship from the prestigious Indian Institute of Management, Ahmedabad.
Sanjeev belonged to a regular middle-class family, wherein his father was a doctor at a
government hospital with no “under-the-table” income, and his mother was a housewife.

9. Due to the partition, everything went back to scratch. Sanjeev moved back to the servant’s
quarters and over the next three years, kept his expenses low and made some money.
He also took up a job as a Consulting Editor of The Pioneer’s career supplement called
Avenues, and ran their careers supplements for the next four years.
Internet had now begun to come to India. In October 1996, he happened to attend the annual
event of IT Asia exhibition in Delhi, and came across one stall with ‘WWW’ written on it.
Upon asking, he was explained that, it was the World Wide Web and that it was internet.
He was a retailer, reselling VSNL e-mail accounts. So he also gave a demo of what exactly
email accounts were, and their potential. He further browsed the internet, showed and also
explained its functioning; a lot of information.
The fact that, 14,000 (just) people were using internet that time, gave him a brilliant idea.
During his days at HMM, Sanjeev had noticed that his colleagues (and companies too) used
to regularly flip through Business India, a leading business magazine of that time, to check
out the 35 to 40 pages of appointment ads that the magazine displayed. Not because they
were unhappy about their jobs, but just to keep their guns loaded. They literally used to read
the magazine back to front.
That is when he realised that people had no one source for job ads.
Hence, he asked the retailer, if he could setup a website for him or how to go about it. But
becauseall the serverswereUS-basedandwebsites could onlybedevelopedthereback then,
he couldn’t.
He quickly called his brother, who was a professor at the UCLA business school, and
explained that he wanted to start a website and wanted his help to hire a server, but didn’t
have the capital for it and would pay him later.
He agreed. And in return, as a goodwill gesture, Sanjeev gave his brother a 5% stake in
Naukri.com for paying $25 / month rent for the server.
In addition to that; he also called-in Anil Lall and shelled out 8-9% for learning net-
programming and doing it and V N Saroja 9% for running the company.
And finally started Naukri.com!
Even after being a Sindhi, he had absolutely no relation to business or businessmen. Being
brought up in government colonies, he was always told that if he wanted to achieve
something in life, he will have to study as hard as he could. And that’s what he did.

10. But one thing was very clear to him and so was his dream as well, to pass out of college, work
for a few years, and then start something of his own. What? How? Where? He wasn’t sure!
But one thing was certain, that he wanted to get onto the Business wagon.
So following the plan, after completing his Bachelors of Arts with specialization in
Economics, he joined Lintas as an Accounts Executive in 1984.
He worked there for three years, after which he moved to Ahmedabad to pursue his PGDM
from Indian Institute of Management in 1987. Later, he was hired by Hindustan MilkFood
Manufacturers (HMM) which is now known as GlaxoSmithKline as their Product Executive
in 1989. He was given to handle the marketing of Horlicks.
Now even though he had a secured and decent paying job, but this certainly did not justify
his talent or fulfilled the purpose of studying so hard. Clearly, he wanted independence from
this monotonous life, and wanted to do something that was more meaningful, more
satisfying, and it definitely had to be a business.
So after working for a year, he quit and in 1990 started two companies Indmark and Info
Edge (India).
In 2004; the company earned Rs.45 crores, all from fresh ads and booked profits worth Rs.
8.4 crores.
In 2006, it became India’s first Dotcom Company to get listed on the Bombay & National
Stock Exchanges in 2006.
In 2012, Naukri entered into the Mobile world and launched their first Mobile App for
Smartphone users designed for Blackberry, Android and iPhone devices. Due to this
transformation, more than half of traffic inflow now happened through Apps and Mobile
sites.
And today, Naukri.com with a database of about 37 Million+ registered job seekers, controls
almost 70% of the online job market traffic share.
Additionally, Info Edge – the parent company of Naukri.com, also owns web sites like
Jeevansathi.com, 99acres.com, Brijj.com, Naukrigulf.com, Shiksha.com, Quadrangle and
Firstnaukri.com as well.
Additionally, Info Edge also holds a major stake in a range of companies including – Zomato
Media Private Limited (www.zomato.com), Applect Learning Systems Private Limited
(www.meritnation.com), Etechaces Marketing and Consulting .

11. RASHEH SHAH
Rashesh Shah is the Chairman and Chief Executive Officer (CEO) of the Edelweiss Group, one of
India's leading diversified financial services conglomerates. He is also the co-founder of Edelweiss
Financial Services Limited (EFSL). He also delivers many speeches, interviews, and lectures on
topics related to financial markets, development, macroeconomic policies, and related matters
Early life and education
Rashesh Shah was a student of Bharatiya Vidya Bhavan and Manav Mandir High School of Mumbai.
He completed a bachelor's degree of Science in Statistics from KC College, Mumbai and a Diploma
in International Trade from the Indian Institute of Foreign Trade (IIFT) in New Delhi. After that, he
completed his MBA from Indian Institute of Management (IIM), Ahmedabad in 1989. He then
joined ICICI. Rashesh Shah enjoys reading and is a fitness enthusiast who enjoys playing tennis.[
An
avid runner, he has participated in in a triathlon and continues to participate in marathons across the
world
Family
Born in a Gujarati family, Rashesh Shah was the first one to study in an English-medium school. He
is married to Vidya Shah, CEO of EdelGive Foundation, whom he met at IIM. The couple has two
children, Neel and Avanti.
Career
Rashesh Shah has an experience of more than 28 years in the financial market sector. He quit his
job at Prime Securities to start Edelweiss along with co-founder Venkat Ramaswamy The company
was founded in November 1995 and commenced operations in February 1996 Unable to meet
SEBI's capital requirement of INR 5 crore, Shah and Ramaswamy changed their business plan; they
worked on private equity syndication and mergers and acquisitions (M&A) and focused on advisory
services.[
They started with a small office in Mumbai's Fountain area with just three employees.]
In
2000, the 10-employees company crossed a capital mark of INR 5 crores and became a Category-1
merchant bank. Currently, Rashesh and Vidya Shah hold nearly 27% stake in Edelweiss. The
company has an asset base of INR 48,000 crore and net worth of INR 5,400 crore.[5]
Besides,
Rashesh Shah has worked as a member of the Executive Committee of the National Stock
Exchange (NSE) and the Stock Exchange Board of India (SEBI). He reviewed Insider Trading
Regulations at SEBI.[1]
He has also held the Chair of the National Council on Capital Markets formed
by Associate Chambers of Commerce and Industry of India (ASSOCHAM)

12. Recently he was appointed President of Federation of Indian Chambers of Commerce and
Industry (FICCI). A regular commentator on macro-economic policies, development matters and
financial markets in the mainstream and financial media, Rashesh is a part of the High Level Task
Force on Public Credit Registry for India as well as the Insolvency Law Committees.
He is also deeply involved in EdelGive Foundation, Edelweiss’s philanthropy arm, which was set up
in 2008, with an aim to provide expertise of financial sector to the not-for-profit sector .
Achievements
 Rashesh Shah won the award of ‘Entrepreneur of the Year’ from Bombay Management
Association in 2008–2009.
 He also bagged the 'Special Award for Contribution to Development of Capital Markets in India'
from Zee Business at India’s Best Market Analyst Awards of 2011.

13. Kailasam Raghavendra Rao
Kailasam Raghavendra Rao, Founder - Chairman & Managing Director of Chennai-based
pharmaceutical major, Orchid Chemicals & Pharmaceuticals Ltd., (Orchid) is a role model of
first generation entrepreneurship. His life and career demonstrates how talented professionals can
harness their entrepreneurial energy and utilize the huge opportunity offered by India to establish
world-class businesses generating employment for the society and earning valuable foreign
exchange for the country.
Mr. Rao established Orchid in 1992 as a 100% export oriented unit (EOU) and grew the
Company rapidly into a global pharmaceutical enterprise specializing in life saving medicines.
With world-class research and manufacturing facilities covering Active Pharmaceutical
Ingredients (APIs) and finished dosage forms as well as infrastructure for new drug discovery,
Orchid today ranks amongst the top pharmaceutical companies in India. By developing Orchid as
the largest pharmaceutical corporation in the State of Tamil Nadu, Mr. Rao firmly placed Tamil
Nadu on the national and international pharmaceutical canvas.
Ever since inception, Mr. Rao instilled the most stringent quality standards in his pharmaceutical
enterprise. As a result, Orchid has to its credit, all the international regulatory approvals
including US FDA, UK MHRA, Australian TGA and DMA, reflecting the high standards of
quality and regulatory compliance which Mr. Rao has institutionalised in the enterprise. Orchid
has also won several international recognitions for its environmental friendly, zero discharge
facilities which reflects a progressive value system marked by sensitivity to environmental
protection.
Born in Chennai, in the year 1958, Raghavendra Rao had been a brilliant student all through his
career. He graduated in 1977 with a Degree in Commerce from Andhra University with a gold
medal for being the topper. He pursued post-graduate studies in Management in the prestigious
Indian Institute of Management, Ahmedabad in 1979. He also acquired Costing (ICWAI) and
Company Secretary (ACS) qualifications while in employment making him a highly qualified
professional with multiple competencies.
His early years in industry were marked by distinguished accomplishments. He started his career
in 1979 with Pure Ice Creams as the Financial Controller and contributed to a turnaround in the
finances of the company and a major increase in the turnover of the group in just a two year
span. In his subsequent stint in Ashok Leyland, he introduced and implemented novel concepts
in costing, MIS and budgeting. He later joined Standard Medicals & Pharmaceuticals Ltd.,

14. Hyderabad where he established modern bulk drug and formulation plants in Andhra Pradesh
and Karnataka as well as a chain of diagnostic centres. He could, in the process, discover his
potential to establish new businesses and create wealth for the society and the nation.
In order to earn the resources required to fulfill his entrepreneurial dream, Mr. Rao took up
employment in the Gulf where he single handedly created a business house comprising
pharmaceuticals, steel products, garments, automobile servicing and hotels. Establishment of
such high technology industrial ventures utilizing Indian talent pool was indeed a unique
proposition for the Gulf economy which during those years was focused essentially on trading.
This effort reflected his capability to break fresh ground in each of his endeavours.
After earning the seed capital, he returned to India in 1992 and established Orchid. Orchid’s
project concept as a first generation enterprise with a pioneering export orientation in the
challenging global pharmaceutical field caught public imagination and attracted huge investor
interest. The initial public offer was over-subscribed 18 times which was a record in those early
years of economic liberalization. In fact, the establishment and growth of Orchid mirrored the
country’s move into an era of globalization, orchestrated by the then Finance Minister, and the
current Prime Minister Dr Manmohan Singh. Mr. Rao was one of the first entrepreneurs of the
economic liberalization era who demonstrated that Indian science, technology and management
could establish world-class enterprises which can compete successfully against global giants on
the planks of science, technology, quality and competitiveness.
Orchid has been a shining case of a forward looking strategy executed to perfection. Although
Mr. Rao had to tailor the initial establishment of the company to the resources available, he
quickly grasped each available opportunity, offered by liberalization, to scale up capacity, access
resources, diversify technologies and eventually achieve global scale and scope. Established
initially as Rs 12 crore project and commencing operations in February 1994 with an initial
capacity of 100 MTs of bulk drugs per annum, Orchid aggressively added capacity of 100 MTs
per annum to achieve the current capacity of over 1000 MTs and matching dosage form
capacities. Orchid has currently a turnover of Rs 1,900 crore. In the process, Orchid emerged as
the leading supplier of life-saving antibiotic injections to advanced countries such as the US and
Europe. In expanding and diversifying Orchid’s operations to an ever-increasing scale and scope,
Mr. Rao distinguished between ownership and management and always strove to put the interests
of the Company and national wealth creation ahead of his own ownership interests.
While earning valuable foreign exchange through export of pharmaceutical products, Mr. Rao
focused on creating value for the long term by establishing state-of-the-art infrastructure for
discovering and developing new drugs. Orchid’s research & development facility is engaged in
discovery and development of new chemical entities in the field of anti-infectives, anti-cancer,
anti-diabetes and anti-inflammation therapeutics. Raghavendra Rao is passionate about
discovering new drugs and placing India in the global discovery map. A leading multi-national
company has already signed up with Orchid for discovering new antibiotic drugs on an exclusive
basis.
Mr. Rao’s key contributions as a first generation entrepreneur to the society and the economy, to
the State of Tamil Nadu and India can be summarized as follows:
 Created a global scale pharmaceutical enterprise which has achieved international recognition for
its life-saving pharmaceutical product range incorporating the highest quality standards.
 Established a world-class research and manufacturing infrastructure with several state-of-the-art
API and dosage form plants and drug discovery laboratories.

15.  Generated employment for over 4000 employees through a wide spectrum of research,
manufacturing and marketing operations in India and abroad.
 Earned for the country valuable foreign exchange through exports to over 75 countries making
the company a top ranking foreign exchange earner in the Indian industry.
 Established core competencies based entirely on Indian talent that could lead the global generics
and innovation efforts in the chosen therapeutic classes.
Mr. Rao is a recipient of several awards and recognitions for his personal and professional
accomplishments and Orchid, for its business performance. In recognition of his contribution to
the Pharmaceutical Industry the Government of India also honoured him with the prestigious
PADMA SHRI Award during the year 2011. Mr. Rao also received other prestigious national
awards for his entrepreneurship, two of the leading awards being the India Young Business
Achiever Award in 1997 and Ernst & Young Entrepreneur of the Year Award in Manufacturing
in 1999. The Company won several awards for its export performance, environmental friendly
operations, energy efficiency and corporate social responsibility (CSR). Orchid Trust established
with the initiative of Raghavendra Rao, contributed to significant social development through
schools and healthcare facilities. Orchid’s CSR initiatives were recognised by the Loyola
Institute with the Mother Teresa Award for the Best Corporate Citizen in 2001. He was also
conferred the Doctor of Letters (Honoris Causa) by the SASTRA University in 2007 for his
entrepreneurial achievements and contribution to the growth of the Indian pharmaceutical
industry.
In addition to spearheading Orchid, he also serves on the boards of several national and
international companies.
History
In 1992, Orchid obtained a certificate for commencement of business and became a public company
the following year. It began producing commercially in 1995 and received theGood manufacturing
practice certification. In 1999, it became the largest producer of oral and sterile cephalosporin and
was ranked among the top five producers of cephalosporinAPIs. That same year, the formulation
division began operations. The early 2000s, the company established offices in the United States
and Russia, then signed an agreement to produce oral cephalosporin for the U.S. market in the mid-
2000s.
The company had a joint venture with Bexel allowing it to complete its phase 1(a), (b) and phase
2(a) clinical trails for the anti-diabetic molecule BLX-1002 and get patent clearance in the U.S.. After
obtaining the patent, the company made an agreement with pharmaceutical companies in Canada to
help produce oral drugs and veterinarianinjectables before expanding its market into Europe. In
2008 and 2009, the company received approval to enter the Canadian and Australian markets and
established a wholly owned subsidiary in Japan.

16. VIJAY MAHAJAN
Vijay Mahajan (born 11 October 1954) is an Indian social entrepreneur and the Founder and
CEO of the BASIX social Enterprise Group [www.basixindia.com] engaged in livelihood
promotion of low income households in over 20 states in India and six developing countries. He
is the President of MicroFinanceInstitutions Network (MFIN) of India www.mfinindia.org.
Early life
Vijay Mahajan was born in Pune, India in 1954. His early education was in neighbourhood
schools, but in the last four years, he was sent to the Jesuit St Xavier's School, Jaipur, where he
learnt to speak English first time at the age of 12. He did well in the final school board
examination in 1970 and appeared in the All India Merit List. Though selected as a National
Science Talent Scholar and admitted to the St Stephens' College, Delhi University to study
Physics, under family "guidance", he joined the Indian Institute of Technology, Delhi in 1970 for
a five-year bachelor's degree in technology, specialising in Electrical Engineering. He won a
merit scholarship all five years at IIT and excelled in academics in his final years at the IIT. The
IIT was also the place where Mahajan discovered and nurtured his love for public affairs,
development and the arts and literature.
In 1979, he went to attend the post-graduate program in management (MBA) at the Indian
Institute of Management, Ahmedabad,[10] from where he graduated in 1981, with a gold medal
for scholastic performance. Though admitted to the Kennedy School of Government in 1981, he
could not join due to inadequate financial aid. Many year later, he was selected as a Mid Career
Fellow at the Woodrow Wilson School of Public and International Affairs, Princeton
University in 1989.
Career
Philips
Vijay's first job was at the electronics multinational company Philips in a marketing position. He
worked there for four years, mostly in the Northeastern and Eastern India. His work took him to
several industrial project locations in the hinterland where he encountered visible poverty. This
fuelled the early interest in rural development and poverty alleviation he had developed while still at
the IIT Delhi. Having heard of the Jawaja Rural University Project launched by the founder and
former Director of IIMA, Prof Ravi J. Matthai and Prof Ranjit Gupta, Vijay decided to study at the IIM

17. Ahmedabad. Two years of study and working with them made up Vijay's mind that he would like to
work in rural economic development full-time and he has been doing that since 1981. After
graduating from IIMA, he joined Dr NCB Nath, a visiting professor at IIMA, and carried out studies for
the Government of India on the rural woollen handloom industry and on the effect of technology
choice on mining communities. But Vijay left this after a year as he was keen to work at the
grassroots and not as a consultant.
PRADAN
he opportunity for grassroots work came in 1982 when Vijay met Deep Joshi then a young program
officer in the Ford Foundation's New delhi office. Both of them shared their experience and agreed
that committed and competent young professionals were need to work at the cutting edge in
development tasks. Deep told Vijay about a Gandhian NGO, the Association for Sarva Seva farms
(ASSEFA), which was working with landless poor households who had been given land
under Vinoba Bhave's Bhoodan movement. ASSEFA began in 1969 in Tamil Nadu in South India
and in 1979 expanded its work in the northern states of Bihar, Rajasthan and Maharashtra. By 1982,
its northern programs were in trouble and ASSEFA was looking for someone to manage those.
In 1991, Vijay left PRADAN with a vague notion of working in the mainstream. He tried to provide
policy advice to the VP Singh government, but it fell before anything could be done. Vijay then
interned for a year as an Organization Development trainer under Prof Somnath Chattopadhyay and
Dr Deepankar Roy, building on his earlier apprenticeship in behavioural work with Dr Rolf Lynton
and Dr Ronnie Lynton.
BASIX
In 1996, realising the need to attract mainstream financial resources, Vijay conceptualised BASIX, a
new generation institution devoted to promoting a large number of livelihoods for the poor and
women on a sustainable basis. See more at BASIX is among the first microfinance companies in the
world to attract commercial debt and equity investments, both internationally and from within India. It
also offers a range of services including savings and insurance, agricultural, livestock and non-farm
enterprise development, and institutional development to rural producers and their groups. Some of
his colleagues at BASIX were Deep Joshi and Sankar Datta
Vijay[24]
has been listed in “60 Outstanding Social Entrepreneurs” by the Schwab Foundation for
Social Entrepreneurship at the World Economic Forum, Davos, 2002; "India's 50 Most Powerful
People" by BusinessWeek, 2009 and among "the twenty people who will reform India during this
decade", by the Indian Express, 2011
He was a keynote speaker at the OECD Foreign Aid Ministers in Paris in 2004, the Geneva Private
Equity Conference on Microfinance, 2005 and the Goldman Sachs global forum on microfinance,
2006, Several panels in the World Economic Forum, Davos 2010
Awards conferred on him include:
 Distinguished Alumnus Award by IIT Delhi, 2003
 Member of the Ashoka Fellowship, 2008[
 HSBC Access award for outstanding contribution to the microfinance sector, 2009
 Skoch Foundation Award for Financial Inclusion, 2010
 Distinguished Alumnus Award by IIM Ahmedabad, 2011

18. DEEP KALRA
We've heard many a time that real businesses take a lifetime to build and Deep Kalra's journey
epitomizes this sentiment. Complete devotion for more than a decade and a laser sharp focus is
what has taken for Makemytrip to reach the stage of an IPO and scale to this level. But what
were the incidents that shaped Deep’s life before? What were the instances that moulded him
into what he is and what makes him tick?
At TechSparks 2013 in Delhi, Deep took the audience through this
journey before diving deep into the Makemytrip story. “It took me 8 years
to figure out what I really wanted to do,” started Deep and then took us
through all the highlights and how they mattered.
Deep went to St.Stephens College, Delhi in 1987 to pursue Bachelors in Economics from where
he went to IIM-A for an MBA Degree. “I was 23 and fresh out of an MBA and it was a fairly
obvious choice to go with the flow which people are trying to change now but back then, I took
up a banking job,” says Deep. He worked with ABN Amro Bank and as most of us are, was
really excited about his first job. But after 3 years, a sense of incompleteness set in and he
decided banking was not something he wanted to do for the rest of his life. Deep quit ABN Amro
and took a break for about a year to figure out what to do next.
While on his break, Deep got a number of well-paying marketing jobs but he decided to pick the
craziest of all. “I wanted to do something touch-feel, on-the-ground kind of a thing and hence I
took up the job of bringing AMF Bowling Inc. to India,” said Deep. The task was a herculean
one as no one in India was really ready to invest in a bowling alley in the 90’s. Deep went
around from place to place measuring places and setting up bowling alleys but the competition
was just too tough. There were hardly any returns and competing against the giant chains like
McDonalds’ was proving out to be impossible in terms of returns on real estate. Deep ran it for
four years but decided to quit. “It was a great entrepreneurial experience but a financial disaster,”
said Deep.