Entrepreneurship Talk Series

14th January 2023, Kathmandu

Caught between fantastic business ideas but hazy design thinking, and vice versa? Solve it all this Saturday on the third session of the ‘Entrepreneur Talk Series’.                          

Even if you have a great business idea, due to the lack of creative reasoning or incentive for implementation, the idea simply rests there before being rejected by the brain. Well, no more of that as it is exactly what Hult at IOE’s third episode, “Creating Business Idea and Design Thinking ” is going to help you prevent.

The Hult Prize, also recognized as the Nobel Prize for students, is a year-long, global competition that challenges young people to solve the most pressing issues of the world by creating innovative social ventures. This year’s theme is Redesigning Fashion and the participants are eager to learn more about it.

The third episode, “Creating Business Idea and Design Thinking” will converge on having the participants get viable ideas for the competition and introduce them to design thinking. Attending it will be particularly interesting for those who have yet to finalize their idea and need help generating the final product in order to win the competition.

The first two sessions of the ‘Entrepreneur Talk Series’ were loved by the audience. They focused on introducing the attendees to entrepreneurship and guiding them into forming their dream teams. This one is also expected to draw large crowds and get a positive response from the mass.

There are a lot of hands-on making the Hult Prize at IOE possible every year. Some of the collaborators this year are MSecurity as the security partner, Daraz as the e-commerce partner, NMB Capital as the silver sponsor, Masta Kala as the title sponsor, Protozoa host as the hosting partner, Entrance Cafe as the venue partner as well as Impact Hub, Taskade and Digital Ocean as the general sponsors.

The guest speakers for guiding the participants in this session are Nikhil Agrawal and Arun Agrawal, the founders of Masta Kala along with Sujit Pathak, the co-founder of Veda, and Nirdesh Dwa, the CEO of Veda. Masta Kala is an establishment for catering personalized gifts where each gift item is innovatively designed considering elegance and usability. On the other hand, Veda aims to solve the schools’ inefficiency to carry out daily processes and lack of adaptation of technology in schools through digitization.

Mr. Nikhil Agrawal strives to hire regional craftsmen and market regional goods on a global scale. Similarly, his partner Mr. Arun Agrawal has the best guidance which has made Masta Kala the flourishing company it is today.

Mr. Sunil Pathak was recently named one of the most influential business leaders under 30 years old in Asia by Forbes magazine. On the other hand, Mr. Nirdesh Dwa is an MIT Bootcamp and RICE Advanced Leadership Program Alumni.

With these professionals offering you advice, this third episode of ‘The Entrepreneur Talk Series’ is sure to be a blast of useful ways to help you advance in the Hult Prize at IOE. Even if you are not participating in the Hult Prize, you can attend the event and return home with ideas about design thinking and innovative entrepreneurship.

8th March 2022, Kathmandu

“Building job is prime necessity of the time. It guides the progress of nation and welfare of its residents.”

The second episode of “Entrepreneurship Talk Series” titled “Building Jobs” was successfully completed by Hult Prize at BPKIHS, Dharan presented by Everest Parentals on 3rd March 2022.

The episode saw an overwhelming presence of over 50 participants and the energy of the budding entrepreneurs and enthusiasts was felt throughout the sessions.

The session commenced with the moderator, Ms. Meera Acharya greeting the audience and mesmerizing everyone about Hult Prize at BPKIHS. Mr. Hirendra Raj Joshi who is the founder and COO of Baja Nepal Pvt ltd and Mr. Gaurav Basyant, who is the founder of Sikable was the keynote speaker for the day.

The speakers gave an elaborate and insightful session about the current job scenario, startup technique, financial and marketing approaches in a business.

They covered all the elements that go from bottom to top in building a successful startup. They inspired the participants and gave ideas regarding the pavement of the way to a successful entrepreneurial journey.

After the session, the speakers addressed several questions from the audiences about the startup of business, challenges, plannings and execution.

The episode was concluded with passing remarks about the Hult Prize at BPKIHS from the Campus Director, Mr. Kumar Dhungel. The enthusiastic interactions between the audience and the speakers were definitely the highlight of the successful session.

This concluded the “Entrepreneurship Talk Series: Building Jobs” organized by HultPrize at BPKIHS.

24th Janaury 2022, Kathamndu

The third episode of “Entrepreneurship Talk Series” titled “Creating a Business Idea” was completed by HultPrize at IOE-Pulchowk Campus presented by Bajra Technologies on the 22^nd of January, 2022.

The episode saw an overwhelming presence of over 110 participants. The energy of the budding entrepreneurs and enthusiasts was felt throughout interaction sessions despite the limitation of an online platform.

Keynote speech from Mr. Shreyan Paudel

The session commenced with the host, Ms. Suniti Shrestha greeting the audience and the guest speakers. Mr. Shreyan Paudel, the keynote speaker of the day, joined in. He is the Chief Strategy Officer of Bajra Technologies- an innovative tech and service company, the Cofounder of a health technology startup “dhi solutions” and an education-focused startup “42”. He gave an elaborate and insightful session with his amazing presentation skills about business ideas, product differentiation, validation of an idea and marketing approaches in a business. He covered all the elements that go from bottom to top in building a successful startup. Mr. Paudel also catered to questions regarding SWOT analysis from the audiences.

Interactive session with Mr. Arjit Bhattacharya

The second guest speaker for the evening was Mr. Arjit Bhattacharya, a serial entrepreneur. He connected with the pool of participants from India; he is the founder and CEO of one of India’s pioneer game development and deeptech solution companies, “virtualinfocom.” The session with Mr. Bhattacharya brought a different synergy in the episode; he talked about why startups fail to evaluate if a startup can create a sustainable revenue or if it will be scalable in the ideation phase. He addressed several questions from the audiences about the lean startup model business models.

Mr. Manohar Adhikari shares about the Behind-the-Scenes of Foodmandu

The founder of the first food delivery platform, Foodmandu, Mr.Manohar Adhikari, joined as the third guest speaker in the episode. Mr. Adhikari shared his experiences while creating Foodmandu and about the customer reception to new business ideas. He added about how to sustain and market a business in changing and competitive times of today.

A fun presentation from Mr. Anjani Phuyal

Finally, the host welcomed the last guest speaker of the episode, Mr. Anjani Phuyal, the Global CTO of Genese Solution and the founder of Girls in Tech (Nepal Chapter). He elaborated about creating a business idea giving examples of Amazon, Daraz and many other national international companies. Mr. Phuyal interacted and initiated conversations with the audiences, and his lively presence-screen captivated everyones’ attention. Further, he answered a few questions regarding Cloud Computing.

The episode was concluded with passing remarks about the OnCampus registrations open until the 26^th of January from the Campus Director, Mr. Bishal Bashyal.

The enthusiastic interactions between the audience and the guests were definitely the highlight of the successful session.

9th January 2022, Kathmandu

On the evening of 8th January, Saturday, the Hult Prize at IOE met up for an invigorating session of Entrepreneurship Talk Series: Introduction to Entrepreneurship.

The event was facilitated by three eminent guest speakers: the Chief Executive Officer and Founder of Hamro Patro, with experiences as a principal software engineer at Verisk Health and Symantec, Mr. Shankar Uprety; development practitioner and Co-Founder of Asha Social Initiative, a gender and Menstrual Hygiene Management in schools WASH-based social initiative in Nepal, Ms. Sahara Basnet; and the Strategy Manager at LoginID, an Identity, and Authentication Saas Startup and a previous Consultant with Master Card Advisors, Ms. Fiona Furlong from Argentina.

The event was attended by whooping participation of over 110 participants who interacted with the guest speakers with zeal and enthusiasm as never before. 

The program was opened by the Media Coverage Manager of the Hult Prize at IOE, Ms. Suniti Shrestha, who introduced the objectives and theme of the Hult Prize at IOE and remarked on the objective of the day’s meaningful gathering, which would be to shed light on entrepreneurship.

She proceeded to introduce the guest speaker panel, the leading experts at entrepreneurship and innovation, and exemplary models of start-ups.

The Campus Director Mr. Bishal Bashyal remarked on the aim of the event while inviting the attendees of the event to participate in the Hult Prize at IOE.

Mr. Shankar Uprety shares about his journey with Hamro Patro and the way forward.

The first speaker of the day, Mr. Shankar Uprety, briefed on one of the most downloaded android applications of Nepal, Hamro Patro, which he co-founded, and of his early experiences as a Nepali software engineer living and working in the United States, which led him to design the app addressing the need of Nepalese residing outside of Nepal. During his talk, he emphasized the necessity of creating something that recognizes the need of the people.

He talked of how he observed the Nepalese society and looked very carefully at what it lacked and needed desperately, and tried to address those very needs in his other start-ups and business ideas like Hamro Keyboard, Telemedicine, and lately Remittance Service. During an extremely interactive Q/A session, he interested the participants with his briefing on conducting the market research through observing the needs of the society and listening to the complaints of the people.

To him, entrepreneurship is addressing the problems of the users more than anything. He also gave insightful answers to the curiosity of the attendees on funding and investments plans for start-ups and about the changing trend of the entrepreneur ecosystem and the flourish of e-commerce over the past decade in Nepal due to the introduction of the internet and digital payment systems.

Ms.Fiona Furlong elaborates on business strategy, business models, and her experiences with corporates and startups.

The second speaker of the day, Ms. Fiona Furlong, also talked about her experience in various start-ups that she campaigned into. She talked about the complications and challenges of the seemingly straightforward start-ups and the need to not give up and keep going.

She urged the participants to push forward through all the complications as long as they believe in your business idea to be worth it.

She ruminated on her experience working in health care, collaborating with doctors and pediatricians, to diagnose children with developmental challenges in their early stages. She had loved working with children and having a positive impact on them.

The most unique of all, she talked about tackling the challenge of funding through participating in various competitions as she did. She tackled the queries of the attendees on dealing with uncertainties as an entrepreneur and urged them to build valuable connections, build a group of motivated individuals to reach a common goal, experiment, and reiterate the business model constantly, about sustaining a business after it has been built, about building revenue models and the importance of marketing and branding in leveraging it for maximum profit.

She ended her talk with a briefing on what her typical day looks like upon a query from one of the participants.

Miss Nepal Asia Pacific International 2017- Ms. Sahara Basnet shares with the audiences her story with Asha Social Initiative and how its purpose still keeps her going, despite all odds, for more at present. 

 The third speaker of the day, Ms. Sahara Basnet, who has dedicated her life to creating a social impact through entrepreneurship, explained what it meant to be a social entrepreneur during her session.

She talked about her experience as a student, witnessing the lack of sanitary and hygienic facilities catered to school girls causing them to drop out in a rural village of Surkhet, which pushed her to become who she is now.

She awed the audience with the tales of challenges and setbacks she had to overcome during her start-up, and emphasized the need for consistency, being realistic with goals, and reminding yourself of the bigger picture every step of the way. Her story made clear the significance of collaboration, partnership, and social relations in any initiative. She shed light on the need to reduce poverty and gender-based inequality through start-ups while addressing climate change and adopting sustainable development techniques in any start-up as she has done on her own.

To her, social entrepreneurship would be creating goods and services that create revenue in your organization, which can, in turn, be used back into the community in a closed chain. While answering the queries of the audience, she urged the budding social entrepreneurs to focus on the groups that are in dire need of services, whose plights are the products of our social constructs and are often under-looked and neglected.

All of the guest speakers were presented with a token of love for the extremely invaluable lessons they imparted to the budding entrepreneurs and impact-makers.

With an extremely lively and interactive session, the attendees were elucidated on entrepreneurship which was further rendered fruitful with the guest speakers receiving, with excitement and open mind, each of the queries that the participants presented. The event was wrapped up with Ms. Suniti Shrestha thanking all of the guest speakers and the attendees.

The sustaining of the massive participation right up until the end of the session advocates for how successful the event was.