USA India Business Summit
USA India Business Summit
May 10th and 11th, 2010 – Atlanta, Georgia, USA
We have been informed by the organisers of the USA India Business Summit that they have organised USA India Business Summit (UIBS) 2010 from May 10-11, 2010 in the Atlanta, Georgia, USA.
USA India bilateral trade is growing leaps and bounds and is likely to double in the next five years. For the last three years, the Georgia Tech Center for International Business Education & Research (CIBER), US India Business and Research Center (USIBRC) and USIII have organized the US India Symposium in Atlanta, Georgia, USA. These events were supported by the Georgia Department of Economic Development, the Metro Atlanta Chamber of Commerce, the U.S. Commercial Service and a host of sponsoring organizations.
The first USA India Business Summit (UIBS) 2010 will be held in Atlanta on May 10th and 11th, 2010 at the Cobb Galleria and Conference Center with the theme of “Growing Business and Promoting Entrepreneurship.” The goal of UIBS is to promote business and investment between USA and India in key areas of technology, agriculture, healthcare, infrastructure, supply chain, logistics, real estate and investment etc. Our special emphasis is to connect small to medium size enterprises and entrepreneurs from USA and India.
The Governor of the State of Georgia, Hon. Sonny Perdue; US Senator, Hon. Johnny Isakson; Ambassador of India to USA, Her Excellency Ms. Meera Shankar; and Vice-Chairman of GE and President and CEO of GE Technology Infrastructure, Mr. John Rice, have already confirmed their participation in the UIBS.
They have also invited Union Minister of Commerce & Industry, Govt. of India, Hon. Anand Sharma; Chairman and CEO of The Coca-Cola Company, Mr. Muhtar Kent; Chairman and CEO ofHenry Schein, Inc., Mr. Stanley M. Bergman; CEO and Managing Director of Infosys Technologies, Mr. S. Gopalakrishnan; Founding General Partner & Chairman of New Silk Route Partners, Mr. Rajat K. Gupta; Chairman & Managing Director of Biocon, Dr. Ms. Kiran Mazumdar-Shaw; Chairman of Suzlon Energy, Mr. Tulsi Tanti; Managing Director of Thermax Limited, Mr. M.S. Unnikrishnan; and Chairman of Hinduja Global Solutions Ltd., Mr. Ramkrishnan P. Hinduja.
In addition, many distinguished speakers from USA and India and hundreds of companies/organizations are expected to participate in UIBS including; US Department of Commerce, US Department of State, Government of India, Georgia State and various State Governments of India, Google, UPS, Lufthansa Airlines, Sigma-Aldrich, IBM, Home Depot, Mahindra and Mahindra, Coca-Cola India, Equifax, Adobe Systems, Georgia Power, Siemens, InterContinental Hotel Group, Georgia-Pacific, NIIT Technologies, Aditya Birla Group, Georgia Tech, NCR, CNN, Tata Group, Larsen and Toubro, Global Vehicles, SAP, Exxon Mobil India, KPMG India, Ramco, Career Builder , Habif, Arogeti & Wynne, LLP, Hartsfield Jackson Atlanta International Airport, Morris, Manning & Martin, LLP, University System of Georgia and Fulton County etc.
The agenda will include welcome and keynote addresses by dignitaries, CEO Council meetings, informative workshops, industry focused panels, one to one networking and match making among participants.
Strategic tracks/industries of interest for UIBS 2010 are:
1. US and India – Businesses and Industries; a regional view
2. Technology – IT, Software , Telecom, Internet, Life Sciences, Biotech and Clean Tech
3. Agriculture – Forestry, Ag Business and Processed Food
4. Healthcare – Medical Technologies and Devices
5. Real Estate and Infrastructure
6. Venture Capital, Private Equity and Investment Banking
7. Auto – Manufacturing and Auto Parts
8. Aerospace and Defense
9. Tourism and Hotel Industries
10. Manufacturing, Supply Chain and Logistics
11. HR and Manpower Development
Registration fees : $495/person (Early Registration $395/person).
For more information and sponsorship opportunities, please contact Program Chair, Ani Agnihotri at 404-394-6678 or by e-mail USIBRC@gmail.com.
Networking Opportunities – Centrallia
Centrallia event is based on the internationally recognized business to business match-making forum called Futurallia, which has successfully brought thousands of businesses together since its founding in 1990.
Core of the concept are a series of 30 minute, pre-programmed, one-on-one meetings that allow businesses to quickly connect and find ground for common opportunity. It is an intense, yet friendly and cooperative environment, that allows delegates to meet with up to 12 potential trade partners over two days. Pre fixed meetings are organised based on the profile of the participant.
Further opportunities to meet and network are abundant through Centrallia’s tradeshow and social events. It is simply one of the fastest, most efficient ways to expose your business to new markets and opportunities worldwide.
More than 500 small to medium sized businesses from around the world will gather in Winnipeg, Manitoba, Canada, during Centrallia to form new business relationships of mutual benefit. This global business to business forum gives the opportunity to forge profitable alliances with companies located in the Americas and across the world. Participation from more than 20 world economic regions are expected.
Franchising Business Opportunities
Indian Merchants’ Chamber and Franchising Association of India are jointly organizing a Franchising Business Opportunities Meet on Saturday 17th April 2010 from 10.30 am to 7.00 pm in the Walchand Hirachand Hall (4th Floor), IMC.
This will be an excellent opportunity for interested entrepreneurs/potential franchisees to connect with many participating national and international brands currently looking to expand their franchise business. Lakme, Aptech, DTDC, NSA International, Dosa Plaza, US Dollar Store, CIA and a few financial services companies are among many other franchisors who will be participating in the Meet.
Please email your confirmation at gs9@imcnet.org. Alternatively, you may call Mrs. Kiran Kamath at 2204 6633, extension 107.
Mentoring for Startups
Centre for Innovation, Incubation and Entrepreneurship
We know that it takes more than just early stage risk-capital to get a company off the ground – we enable most of what may be required by entrepreneurs through incubation, training and best practice research.
Our activities therefore revolve around forging new ways of helping budding entrepreneurs in India – typically through:
- Incubation and seed-funding of innovative start-ups
- Research on industry trends and best practices – enabling our start-ups to focus on relevant problems while learning from other’s mistakes
- Disseminate knowledge through conferences, publication and training a new generation of practitioners
- Forge linkages with partners, globally, to support the above activities
Recently, we set up CIIE Initiatives as a Section 25 Company to give our incubation model more flexibility and enable us to provide risk capital to aspiring entrepreneurs.
Sankalp 2010
The Sankalp 2010 Awards and Investment Forum is an annual Intellecap initiative committed to catalyzing entrepreneurship in the social enterprise space. Sankalp actively facilitates collaboration between established and budding entrepreneurs, investors, thought leaders and sector stakeholders interested in contributing effectively towards this fledgling yet fast-growing industry.
Sankalp 2010 Forum and Awards shall recognize, award and connect the most investible social MSMEs (Micro, Small and Medium enterprises) operating in 5 high impact sectors:
- Agriculture, Food & Rural Business
- Clean Energy
- Inclusive Education
- Health, Water & Sanitation, and
- Technology for Development
How to enable credit to the poor?
Karmayog CSR Dialogue Series 2010
We would like to kick-off the first of the “Karmayog CSR Dialogue Series“, that is a continuing set of of discussions on Corporate Social Responsibility in India.
The discussions will be based on the learnings and results from the Karmayog CSR Study and Ratings of the 500 largest Indian companies, that has been undertaken since 2007. (See www.karmayog. org/csr2009 for more details)
Our objective is to both broaden and deepen the understanding and implementation of CSR in India, by including more people from different areas of work and experience in the dialogue on CSR. So far, Corporate Social Responsibility is discussed and debated largely by corporates, industry associations and some departments of government that have a direct connect. But because what corporates do (through their products and processes) affects all citizens, it is important that all types of stakeholders from citizens to NGOs, media to academia, and corporates and government, together interact and engage on Corporate Social Responsibility.
Solutions to the issues and problems that confront society today need the contribution and involvement of all stakeholders, especially corporates, that form a large, influential and resource-rich group, but also the contributions of all other stakeholders. Karmayog, through the CSR Dialogue Series and through the networking platform that it provides, aims to bring together inputs, contributions and suggestions from all, enabling these to be used in finding and implementing solutions.
We welcome suggestions from you for topics to be covered in the “Karmayog CSR Dialogue Series”.
Karmayog CSR Dialogue Series 2010 – 1
How to enable credit to the poor?
Mohammed Yunus, the pioneer in microfinance and Nobel Peace Prize Winner 2006, says that “Microcredit should be about helping the poor to get out of poverty by protecting them from the moneylenders, not creating new ones. A true microcredit organization must keep its interest rate as close to the cost-of-funds as possible. My own experience has convinced me that microcredit interest rates can be comfortably under the cost of funds plus ten percent, or plus fifteen percent at the most.” (See http://www.grameen- info.org/ for details)
Several Indian micro-finance companies are shortly seeking listing on the stock exchange, and once listed, will be seeking and working towards huge and increasing profits for their investors. This means that they will be lending money to the poor at higher and higher interest rates, and justifying the same as there is currently no other way of reaching credit to the poor. This method of maximizing profit without any other social objective is a way of cashing in on poverty, and is contrary to the objective with which micro-finance insititutions were started, which was to provide credit to marginalised sections of society at the lowest possible rate of interest, with the objective of bringing them out of poverty, and not with the objective of earning profits for the lender.
Some questions:
– Should companies with no social objective be permitted to lend money to the poor?
– Should only government organisations and non-profits be permitted to lend to the poor?
– Should there be a limit set to the profits that can be made from micro-finance activites?
– Should the rate of interest be fixed by government, as is done for banks?
The Government of India has framed the Draft Document on Regulation and Development of Microfinance Sector. Please send your suggestions and ideas on ‘how to reach credit to the poor?’ . All responses received will be displayed on Karmayog as well as forwarded to the Ministry of Finance and NABARD.
Please respond via www.karmayog. org/messages/ message.aspx? id=2554
Regards,
Vinay
www.karmayog. org — creating collective conversations
Stanford-India Biodesign Fellowship
STANFORD-INDIA BIODESIGN FELLOWSHIP
Announcing a fellowship opportunity under the StanfordIndia Biodesign (SIB) program for the year 2011 .
About us:
The SIB program explores the basics of biomedical technology innovation and entrepreneurship through an intensive one year fellowship at the Stanford University, the All India Institute of Medical Sciences (AIIMS), and the Indian Institute of Technology, Delhi. The program is sponsored by Department of Biotechnology (Ministry of Science and Technology, Govt. of India) and Stanford University, USA in partnership with Indo-US Science & Technology Forum.
Eligibility:
Candidates with graduate or postgraduate degrees (engineers, doctors, business professionals, others) having passion for invention and early-stage development of new medical technologies addressing the clinical needs in India are encouraged to apply. Applicants must be Indian citizens, and must be able to devote full one year at the Stanford University, USA and the SIB Center, AIIMS, New Delhi. Shortlisted candidates will be called for final interview at New Delhi.
Benefits:
Fellowship pays stipend, tuition, travel and health benefits. Fellows are mentored by experts in the USA and India.
Duration: One year; starting January 2011 (Full time)
Apply online: http://biodesign.stanford.edu/india/
Last Date of Application: Mav 15, 2010
Queries should be addressed to: info@sibiodesign.org
SBI launches new scheme to encourage SMEs
SBI launches new scheme to encourage SMEs
State Bank Of India (SBI) Has Launched A New Scheme, SBI Smile which will provide interest-free seed capital of up to Rs.10 lakh to budding entrepreneurs. The scheme is specially targeted to encourage small and medium enterprises and will be in place initially for one year, after which the bank could extend it, depending on the situation. Currently, banks give loans to the entrepreneurs only if they have a substantial capital to invest. The loan amount is around 70-80 percent of the total project cost. Under the new scheme, SBI will provide the seed capital and entrepreneur will also be able to seek a loan. Loan terms & interest rates will be determined as per the existing guidelines. The bank will offer a five-year moratorium on paying the seed capital amount. The bank, however, has not set any target for the amount it will expend under the scheme.
Enterprisers.in 