Eximius, hosted by the Entrepreneurship and Innovation Cell of Indian Institute of Management – Bangalore (IIM-B) is amongst the most significant annual national entrepreneurship summits in India. This year’s theme was “Transcend the Ordinary” which focused on inculcating the ability to go beyond the realm and take risks. The three-day national summit comprised of events, workshops and speaker sessions packed with excellence and innovation. It also featured case competitions and workshops in entrepreneurship, finance, marketing, healthcare, analytics, fine arts among many others. The summit saw a participation of 1000+ colleges, 300+ start-ups and a footfall of more than 30,000 plus.

Eximius 2019 was inaugurated by dignitaries such as Dr. Montek Singh Ahluwalia, Former Deputy Chairman of Planning Commission (2004-14), Sahil Barua, IIM-B Alumnus and Co-founder at Delhivery, Bala Malladi, CEO at ACT Fibernet. Dr. Ahluwalia shared a few thoughts on entrepreneurship and said that India has an ecosystem which can empower and equip small organizations or startups to even disrupt large organizations. Mr. Sahil Barua, an alumnus of IIM-B, shared the story of his startup “Delhivery” and urged entrepreneurs to target problems that are large and meaningful.

There was a panel discussion with Vaishnavi Reddy of Brandstory, Ankit Chowdhary of Servify and Manan Chandan of Healthify; wherein they spoke about the traps the firms fall into during their initial years. Next in line was Prof. B. Mahadevan of IIM-B who gave valuable insights on inspirational leadership and how Bhagavad Gita is helpful for budding Entrepreneurs. Mr. Shreevatsa Prabhakar, the founder of Servify, talked about consumer satisfaction. Another eminent speaker at this year’s Eximius was Mr. Ankit Aggarwal, founder of Dare2Compete. He weighed in on the importance of failures and how everyone should have a resume of deviations. The panel discussion on ‘Ease of Doing Business’ revolved around the compliances and exemptions in place to help startups scale up. This was followed by an invigorating talk by Savi & Vid from Bruised Passports who gave tips to the participants on how to produce high-quality content for social media.

Further enforcing the spirit of entrepreneurship, Kris Gopalakrishnan, one of the co-founders of Infosys, provided valuable insights into the life of an entrepreneur. He stressed on the importance of being happy in life and explained the laws of Ikigai followed in Japan for the same. Eximius hosted Startup Expo, an opportunity for start-ups to showcase their offering to a diverse crowd of investors, entrepreneurs and customers. This year the expo had projects ranging from customized textile stores to electronic devices which help detect child harassment in schools.

Staying true to its objective of fostering an innovation mindset, the first event of Eximius 2019 was BzzWings, a B-plan competition organized in association with NSRCEL, the innovation hub of IIM-B. In another event called Pitcher Perfect, start-ups pitched their ideas in front of top-notch investors/VCs to get funding. In Healthonomics, an event by Dr. Reddy’s Laboratories, participants got an opportunity to work on solutions for live projects. There was another event for participants to showcase their marketing skills, where participants had to design a marketplace business model of an online ad platform to facilitate the reach to consumers through online channels. A competition called Changemakers, was organized by the Public Policy Club of IIM-B in association with ENI, where participants got a unique opportunity to explore, debate and put forth their views on challenges faced by Indian entrepreneur and construct a feasible public policy for the same.

With events ranging from case competition on Akshay Patra Zero Waste Challenge, Ace The Waste to designing market strategy for ACT Fibernet, Eximius witnessed a lot of diverse events in its 3-day entrepreneurial summit.

All the three days of Eximius ended with an enthralling Cultural Night with performances from Taal and Dhwani, the dance and music clubs respectively of IIMB, a mesmerizing performance by ‘The Local Train’ and lastly a DJ night to wrap up another successful edition of Eximius.