St. Mira's College For Girls, Pune

Quarterly Review meeting of IIC 2021-2022

The Centre for Women Entrepreneurship (CWE) and Institutions’ Innovation Council (IIC),jointly took a meeting to review activities conducted inquarter 1 and quarter 2 for the academic year 2021-2022 and to propose new activities for quarter 3 and quarter 4 on 28th April 2022 from 11am to 11.45 am. The meeting was conducted in A.V. room.

In the meeting the activities of quarter 1 and quarter 2 conducted by IIC in academic year2021-2022 were reviewed by Dr. Rama Venkatachalam, President IIC. Also the upcoming activitiesfor quarter 3 were discussed in detail by Mrs. Abhradita Nahvi Chatterjee,Vice president IIC. It was proposed to conduct activities on business models, intellectual property and one visit to a start-up in quarter 3. It was also proposed to conduct a business plan national level competition in quarter 4.Also faculty members were asked to identify budding entrepreneurs to write about their journey in upcoming edition of Zenith-the CWE publication.

The meeting was attended by 10 IICcouncil members (faculty) and 3 students. The meeting concluded with appreciation and thanksto each and every member of the IIC council.

IIC Self Driven Activity BUSINESS PLANNING WORKSHOP

On 26th March 2022, a workshop was conducted on ‘Business Planning’ forCentre for Women Entrepreneurship. The session witnessed an overwhelming presence of 100participants.Theattendees includedCWE facultymembers and students.

The aim of the workshop was to introduce to the participants the strategic approach towards business plan and provide hands on experience through exercises and discussionon the same.

The session introduced the students to the essentials of an effective business plan with the latest examples from the industry.The session focused on various components of a business plan. The students were involved in anexercise on business plan of a ‘Coffee Bar’ where they worked out different aspects of business plan- product planning, market analysis, industry analysis, location strategy, management plan and financial plan, start-up requirements and effective implementation.

The workshop also encouraged participants’ discussion of business plan of their business idea.The platform provided aspiring entrepreneurs an opportunity to present their idea to audience and test the waters.The workshop was appreciated by participants as it helped them to learn the essentials of effective business plan, strategizing and major pitfalls in planning and execution. They also experienced it through feasibility discussion and drafting of business plan of their idea. The workshop was conducted by Asst.Prof.Rajni Singh

Startup Club Catalogue - 2020-2021

Session on Attitude and Behavioural Development - CWE

On 12th February 2022, a session was organized for CWE students to give them knowledge about entrepreneurial skills – Attitude and Behavioural Development on online platform. 47 students, 3 faculty and 1 resource person were present for this session.

The Guest Speaker - Miss Devyani was always attached to her Indian roots, she started her adventurous journey of making & selling small pots, cups and bottles etc. She was firm to make her passion of mud therapy as her commercial enterprise venture. She firmly believes that to be a successful entrepreneur, the product, they create, must solve problems of the society.

Students got valuable insights on the importance of OBSERVATION – what the customer looks for in a product. Diligent Observation of Customer needs often serve as business ideas. Once product is produced, it is also important to communicate effectively with potential customer about its features, configuration, application and most important benefits. The product that an entrepreneur creates should have good benefits to society.

Centre for Women Entrepreneurship (CWE) launch of the Coffee Table book-ZENITH

Centre for Women Entrepreneurship (CWE) launched a Coffee Table book-ZENITH, 1st Edition, 'Inspiring Studentprenuerial Journeys'. The program was organised in the Audio-Visual Room at 12:00 noon on 30th Mar 2022. The program began with Ms. Udita D,a student member, CWE and IICintroducingthe book- ‘Zenith’, Centre for Women Entrepreneurship and the journey of the Centre so far. The introduction of the guests by Ms. Shanthi Fernandes was followed by the unveiling of book by all the dignitaries.

The chief guest, Ms. Pooja Anand, Corporator for Khadki Cantonment Board, motivated students to maintain focus on beliefs, goals, and dreams. She suggested studentpreneurs take failure as part and parcel of life. “Have back- up plans and learn from failures,”she said and emphasized on women being financially independent.Our esteemed guest, Ms. Kalyani Sardesai, a journalist, author, and corporate trainer, said, “A creation of an enterprise is a milestone forever". Further, she cautioned budding entrepreneurs to choose their partners wisely in business and life.Our valued guest Ms. Padmaja Shastri, a journalist and alumna of St. Mira’s College, emphasized the problem-solving perspective of entrepreneurship. The studentpreneurs were appreciated for their courage and hard work in starting and running their ventures.Following the address by guests,student entrepreneurs shared their journey and upcoming batch of student entrepreneurs introduced themselves.

Dr. Jaya Rajagopalan, the principal in charge addressed the session by expressing great pleasure over the journey of CWE and the enviable results. Dr. Snober Sataravala, IQAC Coordinator appreciated the budding entrepreneurs for their courage to dream and congratulated them for their step towards self- reliance.Principal- in charge and Vice- Principal presented token of appreciation to the esteemed guests.The programme ended with the vote of thanks proposed by Rekha Kankaria, Coordinator, BBA & BCA.

Guest Lecture on “Technology Transfer in Data Science”

The Centre for Women Entrepreneurship (CWE) and Institution Innovation Council (ICC) Cell of St. Mira's College for Girls, Pune organised a webinar for the staff and students of the Computer Science department on the topic "Technology Transfer in Data Science"on 26th February, 2022 from 3.00 pm to 5.00 pm

The resource person for the webinar was Dr. Chitra Ganesh Desai, a professor and Head Faculty of Computational Science NDA and is ranked in the top 5 Data Science Leader by International School of Artificial Intelligence and Data Science.The webinar began with an opening remark delivered by Reiyona Menezes, a student of the BSc department wherein she welcomed everyone.It was followed by abrief introduction on the CWE and ICC Cell of the college, by the event co-ordinator, Mrs. Shubhangi Jagtap.

The session then proceeded as, the speaker Dr. Chitra Desai took over and shared her knowledge by giving a short introduction. She then explained about how Big Data, Data Science, Data Analysis and Data mining are interlinked with each other by giving daily life examples.She then enlightened us on the Technologies such as Machine Learning, IOT, data story telling etc and also some tools like SAS, Spark, Tableau, WEKA etc. and how it is used in Data Science. She focused on the applications ofData Science, its challenges and how Data Science progresses on different levels.

The webinar concluded with the vote of thanks delivered by a student, UmmeSalamah Kanchwala who thanked everyone for their active support in making the webinar a success.. The technical support was given by Devshri Joshi and Ingrid Sequeira.This informative webinar was attended by 84 participants who includes 12 staff members and 72 students

IIC MOTIVATIONAL TALK - Journey of Farm Didi

The Motivational Talk by Ms. Manjari Sharma, alumna IIM Calcutta, on 15th of February 2022 touched many a heart as she narrated her journey from a corporate person at Kearney to FarmDidi, From one to one million. FarmDidi’s main aim has been to empower rural women, provide employment to women farmers to make them independent. They are focused on impacting the lives of rural women and their communities at a larger scale by respecting and caring for their stakeholders (rural women, their villages and the communities, employees, consumers, and partners in value chain). Ms. Manjari spoke about how one must be relentless and never give up and let problems get in the way. She spoke about how she has been passionate about women entrepreneurship and building her own business while taking care of the ecosystem and raising the society as well. She spoke about her hurdles and her efforts in bringing a well-deserved success to FarmDidi. To summarize, the students were facilitated with insights of getting introduced to Farmdidi and its Ideation, growth of women centric entrepreneurial journey, guidance and motivation to work hard, encouragement to peruse one’s passion and ways to stay motivated to achieve one’s dream while uplifting the society as well. Seventy-three Third Year students across all streams were instilled with the spirit of rural farming while championing the national objectives of rural empowerment and women education.

Annual Performance Ranking Report

The Institution Innovation Council (MOE, Govt. of India) of St. Mira’s College established in October 2020 under the aegis of CWE has received the annual performance star ranking of 3.5. This year 2680 colleges from across India participated in the Annual Performance Ranking. As a non-technical college with a star ranking of 3.5, St. Mira’s has been recognized as a college with great potential for promoting Innovation, Entrepreneurship & IPR.

IIC Annual Performance 2020-21 College and standalone

Story Telling Session

St. Mira’s College for Girls, CWE and IIC organized a Webinar on 22nd November, 2021 narrating the journey of a very successful entrepreneur Mrs. Mrunalini Makhale. She described her challenging task of establishing CRAZYPETALS that inspired our youngsters to face the odds in life. Mrs. Mrunalini Makhale is an engineer turned into a fashion designer. Her profound love for Indian art and rich heritage of textiles made her leave the IT industry after working there for more than a decade. She instilled faith in the students and made them realise not to compromise with quality and effort, retain brand image and carve a niche in the hearts of customers. Mrs. Mrunalini also invited the students and staff to her shop and her exhibitions and expressed her desire to remain in touch with the college lifelong.

Webinar on “My Story- Motivational Session by Successful Innovators”

The Centre for Women Entrepreneurship (CWE), IIC and IPR cell jointly organised a webinar on “My Story- Motivational Session by Successful Innovators” under the theme Innovation on 15th November 2021 from 3 to 4 pm . The webinar was conducted on virtual platform Google Meet, where Mrs. Shubhangi Patil, shared her successful journey from a homemaker to an Inventor and Patent holder of processed food- ‘Walnut Ragi Soup’.

Mrs. Shubhangi Patil, a commerce graduate, completed a food processing course, shared her journey of filing patent for her Walnut Ragi Soup. She explained the need for experimenting was personal when her husband met with an accident and disapproved of having nonvegetarian food. Exploration of different sources of calcium, proteins, iron and essential nutrients in millets lead her to Ragi, a millet has lots of calcium and iron which is useful in recovery of fractures. Further, on suggestion of a family friend, she met Adv. Ganesh Hingmire who helped her file patent for the Walnut Ragi soup. The students got insights into challenges faced by Mrs. Patil and how she overcame them, step by step.

The session inspired the young minds towards innovation and IPR. The speaker stressed on having passion, perseverance and connecting with right people to take forward any idea to bring it into reality. She also cautioned about sharing ideas with the right persons to avoid copy be unauthorised persons.

The session was attended by 31 students and 4 faculty members of CWE.

CWE Workshop on Entrepreneurship and Innovation as a Career Option

The Centre for Women Entrepreneurship (CWE) organised a workshop on “Entrepreneurship and Innovation as a Career Option”, on 16th November 2021, from 11.00 am to 1.00 on the virtual GMEET platform. The workshop was conducted by Dr. Sangeeta Kamath (-Founder and managing partner of Step Upp Advisors LLP, the Conceiver of Swaayambhu a social movement to Transform Back Benchers into Front Runners, Board of Advisors for The Centre for Women Entrepreneurship (CWE) at St. Mira's College for Girls.

Number of participants for the session were 94 (88 students +6 faculty). The session was organised with the objective to address a spectrum of benefitting themes that was designed to help individuals hone their entrepreneurial and innovative skills and encourage inspirational individuals to find the motivation to step up and dip their toes in the entrepreneurial sphere and to guide them on what entrepreneurship is all about and different ways to starting an enterprise.

Orientation Session for Students & Faculties of the Institute by Innovation Ambassadors (IA)

The Centre for Women Entrepreneurship organised an orientation session for students and staff by faculties trained as Innovation Ambassadors by Ministry of Education(GoI) on 20th August 2021 at 4 pm. The webinar was organised to develop knowledge and create awareness on various aspects of Entrepreneurship, Innovation & IPR. The webinar started with an introduction of the speakers and the session. Dr. Rama Venkatachalam spoke on Pre-incubation and Incubation. She initiated the session by talking about Business ideation, how one has to be creative in generating ideas and change them to business with its feasibility check and identification of opportunity. She further explained the functioning of business, the importance of a business plan, business model, and Bootstrapping. She enlightened the students on the Pre-Incubation and Incubation process and Cell, where students can get all the necessary help to convert their ideas into business. She encouraged students to have an entrepreneurial mindset. Ms Abhradita. C. Nahvi described Design Thinking and explained its five model-Empathize, Define, Ideate, Prototype, and Test. She also explained the meanings and facts hidden in the logos of various companies. She threw light on creativity which is the pillar of Design Thinking, followed by Problem solving and Constructive criticism. She inspired the students with her experience and journey of starting an online venture. Ms. Kajal Jaisinghani spoke about Entrepreneurial Development. She defined entrepreneurship, its three core aspects, and the qualities one must possess to become an entrepreneur. She touched upon its importance in creating a change in society through employment generation and economic growth. It is never too early or too late to be an entrepreneur: she shared some motivating stories of young entrepreneurs to the revolutionary ones. Dr. Dimple Buche revealed the significance and benefits of legality in entrepreneurship. She spoke about Intellectual Property Rights (IPR) such as Copyright, Patent, Trademark, Industrial design, Geographical indicators, and their value in detail with various examples. Through this, the students learned that IPR acts as a shield to protect their business idea, creativity, and product from the legal point of view. The total participants were 140- 18 faculty and 122 students participants. The session ended with a kind vote of thanks by Ms. Shanti Fernandes To conclude, the webinar had four facets of entrepreneurship weaved in one. It gave a broad insight and exposure to entrepreneurship. The students took back an ample amount of knowledge that will assist them in their entrepreneurial journey.

WORKSHOP ON OPPORTUNITIES IN BAKING

St. Mira’s College for Girls, CWE and IIC organized a virtual workshop on “Opportunities in Baking” on 10th July 2021. The workshop was presided over by Mrs. Melanie Andrade, owner of the famous Fat Cat’s Café in Pune. Ms. Andrade catered ‘Decadence Desserts’ from home in Pune and Mumbai prior to the Fat Cat’s Café.Her recipes featured in Vogue and ‘Decadence’ was a fixture at several farmer's markets and catering events. Before entering the F&B Industry, she enjoyed a colourful career path from a Copy Editor at Better Photography Magazine and an Outbound Tours manager at Thomas Cook and SITA Travels. The workshoprendered an impetus among the participants, instilled a competitive spirit among the students and encouraged all to pursue their latent potential. The workshop also welcomed five external participants. The interactive session proved to be beneficial to the budding entrepreneurs at St. Mira’s.