How IIT Kanpur is Helping Young Entrepreneurs Network An initiative of IITK Alumni Association, SMC is an event for the entrepreneurs, by the entrepreneurs.

90% of Indian Startups fail within the first five years. Shocking, isn't it? And that too when 3-4 startups are born every day. Most of them however do manage to secure seed funding, so what goes wrong along the way?

The fact is there's a lot more that goes into making your startup into the next big thing than what is observed. You need to be at the right place at the right time. And most importantly, know the right people. Leveraging and building connections is something that doesn't happen overnight. It takes constant effort, you need to be on the lookout for opportunities and make sure you don't end up missing something you'll regret later.

This is where Startup Master Class intends to help out. An initiative of IITK Alumni Association, SMC is an event for the entrepreneurs, by the entrepreneurs. The aim is to build collaboration, inclusiveness and interaction among the community enabling them to succeed. This is an opportunity for everyone associated with the startup ecosystem to come together under one roof for fostering the spirit of entrepreneurship and building connections.

Here we invite those passionate, those who've dared to venture out and those who've been in the business for long, to come share their experiences - the stories of success and failure, and lessons learnt along the way. As someone very rightly said, "While it is wise to learn from experience, it is wiser to learn from experience of others.'

Through its 8 editions, organized across various cities in India - Bangalore, Pune, Delhi, Hyderabad, Kolkata, SMC has engaged more than 5000 startup enthusiasts, 200+ delegates, 500+ startups and 100+ Venture Capital firms. This has created an ecosystem for startups to leverage the power of the Alumni - the expertise, mentoring, funding, government and corporate connects - to support their journey.

This Edition of SMC

With the commencement of 2018, SMC Central is all set to arrive at Kanpur Central.
As the nation would retreat from the celebrations of its republic, IIT Kanpur shall march towards one of its biggest conclaves celebrating the entrepreneurial ecosystem created by its alumni, building startups all across the nation. Scheduled to be held on 27th and 28th of January 2018, this two day action packed event is envisioned with not only promoting entrepreneurship amongst students, but also helping the existing startups by exploiting IIT Kanpur's experience in innovation & research and its vast Alumni network. And this edition promises to be the biggest one till date, with the guest of honor as Shri Yogi Adityanath (CM, UP) addressing the gathering, talking about the the corpus fund of 1000 Cr. set up in Up for startups and instilling a sense of giving back to the society.

Following are the tracks of the event:

a) 1 -1 with mentors which was hallmark of the previous event and we had more than 250 One on One sessions.

b) Workshops to bring the energy, tools and knowledge to this audience - Blockchain, Augmented reality, Virtual reality, Bulletproofing your startup, Drones, Mobility, Artificial Intelligence, Innovation Framework, Startup Fundamentals.

c) Captivating sessions by VCs and Entrepreneurs on center stage with those who are doing or have done- Ravi Sakhuja (National President at Indian American Forum), Chintan Vaishnav (Academic Director at MIT Tata Center, USA), BVR Mohan Reddy (Chairman at NASSCOM & Founder at Cyient), Lalitesh Katragadda (Inventor, Google Map Maker), Saurabh Srivastava (Co-Founder and Director at Indian Angels Network).

d) SMC Select: A platform for Startups to Pitch their idea/product to various VCs /Investors - Direct consideration for SIIC and INVENT program at IITK. Investors from Helion Venture Partners, Indian Angel Network, Accel Partners and Jungle Ventures will be present. Indian Angel Network also has a fund of 100 Crore that its looking to invest in tier 2 city startups.

e) Challenges: Proposed by the business and the government, participate in the real world challenge.

Registrations for the event are open now. Log on to http://www.startupmasterclass.in/kanpur/#overview today or connect with us on facebook at https://www.facebook.com/IITKAA/