KIIT Student Counseling Cell organized a virtual session on “Myth & Truth about Startups” on 1st August 2021. Students and faculty members from all the schools of KIIT-DU participated in the session.
Speaking on the occasion, Dr. Sucheta Priyabadini, Director, Student Counselling stated that career counseling sessions have been initiated by the Counseling Cell in recent times, involving the alumni based abroad, to share their success stories with their juniors. She welcomed and introduced the Guest Speaker, Shri Sidharth Das, Co-founder, Urbanshef.
Sharing his experiences in setting up the startup, Shri Das urged the participants to follow their own passion and decide on the type of business they want to run. He also advised them to create a website of their startup company and also promote their product in social media platforms and influence the Investors. On the other hand, Ms. Stefania spoke on Fund Management, Financials, Product Development, etc.
Shri Das is a distinguished KIIT-DU alumnus from 2014 graduating batch of School of Mechanical Engineering and his spouse Ms. Stefania is a Psychological well-being practitioner at National Health Service of Scotland and Co-Founder, urbanshef. He did his MBA from Strathclyde Business School, while Ms. Stefania has completed Masters in Research Methods in Psychology. Ms. Stefania started her entrepreneurial journey as the founder of GETKIKI. Portion of revenues of this startup is deployed to reduce 8.19 tonnes of carbon dioxide from the atmosphere so far by planting thousands of tree across Madagascar and Scotland. She also has many projects on hand like Peruvian protection of Amazon forest, clean energy through hydropower in Uganda, etc.
Prof Samaresh Mishra, Director, Students Affairs expressed happiness on the fact that a student from Mechanical branch has started a food company. It demonstrates how passion can be pursued as a profession, he said. Prof. Chinmay Panigrahi, Director QAC spoke on the importance of patience in initiating a startup. He further mentioned about the need for a clear roadmap and that the goal can be achieved with simple mantras of vibrant knowledge, novelty, originality, methodology and deliverability.
Prof A. K. Sar, School of Management appreciated the management strategies taken by Shri Sidharth and Ms. Stefania for Urbanshef. Concluding the session, Prof. Kajal Parashar, Deputy Director, Community Engagement Cell, KIIT-DU thanked them for taking such an enlightening session.