Happy Birthday – Startup Saturday Kolkata

There were balloons, there were party hats, there was a yummy cake, there was snacks, there were celebrities to cut the cake and above all, there were some amazingly vibrant minds of the age to celebrate it 🙂 The day could not have been better. Around 50 people turned up to celebrate the event and they all deserve the first applause. It was all the more special for them to take out some of their precious time as India was playing against South Africa in the World Cup and they had to miss the action.

Pankaj Judge took the initiative to decorate the venue and was supported by Namrata Kothari, Abhinaba Dey and Mukesh Agarwal. It was fun to see the same white board with Birthday wishes and balloons instead of the names of the speakers and some entrepreneurial stuff. People started coming in and filling the seats and in no time, everyone started to interact with each other. And yes, the live scores were updated on the white board by Mukesh Agarwal until Sachin got out after scoring a brilliant century.

Abhinaba Dey (Founder, CEO of AVOW Group), the City Lead, Startup Saturday Kolkata, now took the lead to welcome the audience and gave a small introduction to Startup Saturday for those who were attending the same for the first time. He moved on to discuss his dream – the future initiatives of SS Kolkata that are in pipeline:

1. Open Meetups (similar to OCC – Open Coffee Club) – the whole idea of meeting once in a month does not provide a complete platform for people to meet when they want to share. This initiative is to take Startup Saturday a step forward in organizing small open meetups as and when people are interested to. This will allow a few people (say 10-15) to come in a coffee shop, make their own groups, and talk about stuffs they need to. People will come in, pay for themselves and the dates and venues would be confirmed by the volunteers of Startup Saturday. A very important feedback came from Mohan Beriwal and Arijit Bhattacharya to try and organize virtual meets as well. The idea is well received and might well happen in Kolkata!

2. Workshops – There is a huge gap between academics and industries which can be seen in the struggle of students of final years doing their internship project and large corporates setting up a decent time space for training the “fresher’s”. And this is across all the industries. We are trying to bridge this gap and help both ends meet. Thus, the idea is to build a complete ecosystem here, which will benefit both the industries and the students and increase their throughput. The agenda will be led by Mukesh Agarwal and will be posted on our Startup Saturday group on facebook for feedback from people. Arijit Bhattacharyya, a gaming industry guru, was kind enough to volunteer to take sessions in these workshops.

The idea of open meetups and workshops was well received by the audience. Then, as usual, everyone introduced themselves.

Next in on the stage was Mr. Subrata Sen. Our very own “Subrata Da” is a critically acclaimed Bengali film director, writer, novelist and producer and was kind enough to be our guest speaker for the event. Startup Saturday Kolkata had decided to put “Entertainment” as the theme on the 2^nd Birthday bash and who better could have been there on the stage other than Subrata Sen. People stood up as soon as he came in and applauded to welcome him.

Subrata Da shared some moments from his life starting with how he was brought up and how he ended up in the industry. He talked more about how the movie industry works in West Bengal and shared his views in a very entrepreneurial way so that people could connect to his thoughts and work. He started when Kamnashish Roy was talking about how Bengali movies are copied from South Indian movies but was instantly addressed by Subrata Da himself and was given a list of facts about Bengali movies, how successful they have been, getting all the international reputation. Everyone applauded in appreciation. He went on to speak about his journey. The session was really interactive and many burning topics of the industry discussed. Almost everyone got interested in the discussion and started asking questions.

Subrata Da elaborated on how finance for Bengali movies is coming from outside West Bengal and how that can be a big opportunity for business. He wants on to answer Abhinaba’s question of what industries are related to Tollywood by mentioning some of the industries people could relate themselves to, i.e Advertising, Distributing, Promoting/Marketing, Real Estate. There were too many questions but he answered them all believe us when we say this, the answers were so well devised that it made the point very clear of why he is the best in the business 🙂

After the talks, entrepreneurship cell of IIT-KGP, presented their views and agendas to the audience. They appealed for the support of their initiative on making a National Entrepreneurs’ Day. Mr. Yalamarthi Madhu, CO-Founder East Angels presented his views on developing a network of angel investors in eastern region of India.

The audience greatly accepted the ideas and Mr. Abhinaba Dey, City-Lead told them to share their agenda on the Facebook group of Startup Saturday Kolkata, so that they can get an extended support.  The whole session was live, interactive with a sprinkle of joyful atmosphere. There were moments of laughter, fun and some serious brainstorming.

‘Birthday party’ started getting momentum and then. Mrs. Oindrila Dasgupta, Director, Globsyn Business School came in. It was very nice of her to spare some time for the Startup Saturday Kolkata group and be our celebrity guest to cut the cake. Subrata Sen, Mrs. Oindrila Dasgupta, and Abhinaba Dey cut the cake and the audience merrily sang “Happy Birthday to You!” 🙂 A moment to remember!

We celebrated a happening year where we peaked at the end. We hope to make the coming year even more special by creating a dedicated team of volunteers who wish to enlighten the spirit of entrepreneurship, to educate and empower the youth to come up with great ideas and to give then a platform to share and progress. Thanks to all for being a part of the journey! Looking forward to meet at a Startup Saturday near you.