Why do students need to think about entrepreneurship at the school level? This is the question Pavan Allena, Founder of Metamorphosis faced the most when he took the idea of schoolpreneur summit to schools last year. And it was not only schools who seemed reluctant, parents were hesitant about the idea too — the idea to offer a platform for students to pitch their start-up ideas through the summit. But this year, things seem to have changed. As Metamorphosis, the Hyderabad-based start-up with a vision to introduce entrepreneurship at the school-level, launched its Global Schoolpreneur Summit, both stakeholders, parents and schools, seemed to have realised the importance of entrepreneurship. "Maybe it's the state of our economy or the unemployment problem, everyone seems to have realised that students need to be job creators, not job seekers." Hence, this edition of Global Schoolpreneur Summit has acquired fresh life.
Happening of D-Day
As the order of events goes, first comes Intra Schoolpreneur Summit. This was conducted in three cities of India, Hyderabad, Vishakhapatnam and Mumbai, and applications were also received from Bengaluru, Kochi, Ahmedabad, Bhopal and a few other cities. Global Schoolpreneur Summit 2019 will be held at HICC - Novotel, Hyderabad on December 21, 2019. Here, 30 best ideas which have been picked will be presented in front of investors. "Think of it as Shark Tank," suggests Pavan. This summit will also serve as a networking platform where students will get to interact with subject matter experts.
Metamorphosis will also be launching Metamart, an e-commerce platform where the products made by students can be sold. Then there is the Metamorphosis School of Entrepreneurship, wherein, students can learn the concepts of entrepreneurship virtually and through the platform, will gain access to subject matter experts. Peer-to-peer learning is another important part of this platform.
Lessons learnt
Talking about what they are looking for in an idea, Pavan says that, "We are looking for a potential to grow and a business viability." Their own internal innovation team will not only mentor the idea of students, but they might even end up funding the idea. "No one can predict the skills that will be required in the next five years, so instead, we can have an entrepreneurial mindset. We want to enhance risk-taking and enterprising skills," says Pavan. His personal takeaways from his entrepreneurial journey have been three-fold — achieving clear cut vision, accepting failure and hanging on to the right set of mentors. He hopes that students too get to learn their own lessons while treading the path of entrepreneurship.
