Mumbai-based education activism body EduSikh, supported by Singh Sabha Mumbai launched its new initiative -RISE – Reigniting Sikh Entrepreneurship.  Attended by Sikh businessmen, professionals and entrepreneurs at the prestigious Khalsa College Mumbai, the meet witnessed eminent entrepreneurs sharing their experiences and promising to mentor startups and existing businesses. A WSN report.

RISEReigniting Sikh Entrepreneurship is a serious endeavour to rejuvenate the traditional entrepreneurial spark amongst the Sikhs and make them leap forward through modern-day competition. Mentoring Sikh entrepreneurs and making them future-ready, coaching them to scale up their businesses and imparting skills to leverage networks is going to be our forte, as the program will serve as a link between aspirants and mentors.

Speaking on the phone line to the World Sikh News Paramjeet Singh, the founder of EduSikh said, “RISE will actively engage business mentors, and subject matter experts to guide Sikh-promoted existing businesses, FMBs and Start-ups. One-on-one guidance on setting up and scaling up business, Group workshops, Seminars with leading industrialists, creating a strong network and finding solutions to pressing business issues will be our regular tools to achieve our target.

Speaking at the seminar in Khalsa College, Mumbai, Paramjeet Singh urged the attendees not to shy of acknowledging their problems and be ready to seek help.

“Mentors can guide from an outside perspective and this provides details which one generally misses.”

Speaking on the Qualities of Entrepreneurs, private equity professional and a principal with the US$2BN special situations fund, Birender Sahani said he started his career in 2001 and had more than 2 decades of experience in Investing and Financial services, having worked with companies such as EY, JPMorgan (India and US), and Colliers International. His areas of expertise comprised Corporate Finance, Financial Modelling and Accounting. He shared how he experimented, and made mistakes but with a lot of persistence and guidance from mentors, managed to survive and grow.

A chartered accountant by profession, well-recognized for excellence in the field of finance, Harvinderjit Singh Bhatia, an alumnus of Columbia Business School, CEO and Co-founder of Radiowala- India’s largest B2B smart-tech platform catering to in-store radio network and curating customized radio channels for the retail industry spoke on the importance of “Identifying and filtering business opportunities.”

Sardar Bhatia shared how he joined Radio Mirchi as CFO and how the experience of setting it up from scratch helped him till the entrepreneurial bug bit him and he started his first enterprise and is now a founder of two more successful enterprises, namely Sochcast and Frenzi.

Counted amongst the top CEOs and business coaches in the country, recipient of the Golden Peacock Award for corporate leadership at the global level, a successful Global L & D and Digital Marketing Strategist and currently associated with ‘Practicing Leader for Leadership Development’, and ‘Digital Initiatives’ with India’s largest multinational corporates, Dr. Jagmohan Singh, in his very lucid style spoke on How to scale UP and Challenge the Status Quo. He explained the salient features and pain points that entrepreneurs face while scaling up.

The finale of the evening was an interesting panel discussion between Golden Precision Products -India’s leading manufacturer and exporter of clutch plates for the last four decades, CEO Harmindar Singh and young and dynamic founder of Singh Styled -India’s first grooming company for Sikhs. Moderated by Imagineer, Entrepreneur, Evangelist, and Leadership Coach and co-founder of a gamified consumer tech platform YONOMY Manak Singh, both entrepreneurs spoke about their journey so far and the lessons learned.  The audience was amazed at their high level of involvement in research and in creating world-class products.

Sukbir Singh and Rishiraj Sethi, the mentors from EduSikh Team answered the queries of the participants who appreciated the initiative and were keen to know how they could benefit.

Since the last many years, EduSikh is engaged in the holistic education of Sikh children across India and in conducting community initiatives through seminars and online webinars. Making it easier for the uninitiated, the body conducts meetings on Understanding the MSME sector, Importance of Wills and other allied topics.  Doing all this, the pioneers also engage in promotion of the Punjabi language through Maboli Olympiads and promotion of Punjabi literature.

Hosted by leading educationist and a successful entrepreneur in his own right, who created IMFS -which specializes in mentoring students who wish to study abroad -K. P. Singh, the program was attended by eminent personalities including Kulwant Singh, Vice-President, Sri Guru Singh Sabha, Ajit Singh Dhingra, Executive Chairman, Prudent Insurance Brokers, Inderjeet Singh Matta, Digital Technology, IBM, Gurpreet S Uppal, Founder, 7Parallels Techno Consultants, Gurvinder Singh Wasan and Captain Surinder Singh Sethi, concluding with appreciation and call for future support from Singh Sabha Mumbai President Manmohan Singh.