Summit for teenagers to share endeavours, achievements

Kolkata: It’s catch them young, grow ‘em old! It promises to identify, fine-tune and nurture entrepreneurial zeal and acumen among the Indian students in the age group of 13 and 18.

‘The Kidoprenuer Summit’, an initiative of Sonali’s Cubo, proposes to hold the first of its kind summit in Kolkata, where young children in the age bracket of 13 to 18, who have already achieved some milestones as individuals- be it in sports, entertainment, arts or any field, shall come together under one roof to share story of their endeavours, experience and achievements.

It will have Merchant Chamber of Commerce & Industries, TiE and PwC as it strategic partners. Starting from Kolkata, it has plans to set out on a pan India journey, said Vayjayanti Pugalia, curator and founder Sonali’s Cubo. “We are trying to follow a model that has been successfully tried out in many parts of the world. This is quite in line with the UN’s Entrepreneurship Education Goal.

The entire exercise will be maximum emersion and experimentation-driven. Our focus will be on developing team work, creativity, critical thinking, communication, public speaking, out of the box problem solving.

Let me make it absolutely clear that our initiative will not stop at merely organising such workshops and camps, but eventually to incubate bright entrepreneurial ideas, connect them with the funds and do everything needed and possible to create the next generation of globally competent, creative entrepreneurial citizens,” said Mr Pugalia, who is an entrepreneur, experienced corporate trainer, etiquette and grooming expert.

The maiden summit in Kolkata will have 4 sessions of 40-45 minutes each. Each of them will have 3 kidoprenuers speaking about their experience there will one 1 business icon to provide useful tips and advice on matters of importance to them. There will be a moderator for each session. Each session will have a subject that will be discussed. There will a pitching session by the young startups, who will present their business plan to a jury constituting of stalwarts from different walks of life.

“The whole idea is to apply theory to real life business scenarios and to groom student participants and young Turks into tomorrow’s start-up wizards. All they need is an innovators eye and a founder’s grit. The basic objective is to build a pipeline of next generation global thinkers and entrepreneurs equipped to take on 21st century’s unique challenges,” said Mr Pugalia.