eChai Ventures is evolving into some sort of a G-School - A School of Doing Good Things.
eChai Fellowship program aims to engage students, professionals and aspiring entrepreneurs involved into our projects, experience the eChai culture and probably learn a skill or two which kind of defines the things we do at eChai Ventures.
We do some interesting and fascinating work at eChai Ventures. eChai conceptualizes and organizes engaging entrepreneurial programs and challenges to develop the spirit of entrepreneurship among youth.
With eChai, we are trying to promote entrepreneurial culture among youth by hosting various programs,
Co.Rise.
We have introduced the list of entrepreneurs as a part of the Co. Rise. Initiative. who have come together to proactively help each other. We will showcase "An Entrepreneur of The Day" with his/her brief story and the kind of support they are looking from the community.
All the entrepreneurs will be pro-actively supporting that person i.e. providing the feedback on their newly launched product, connecting them with potential clients/partners, helping them with finding the right talent, using their products or services, sharing about them in social media, and supporting in many other ways.
We are building the interesting platform around Co. Rise. - where many other entrepreneurs apart from the list below can also actively collaborate with each other.
Design Your City :
Probably our most ambitious initiative, Design Your City aims to build solutions for the Cities by engaging entrepreneurs, professionals, government authorities, students, academicians and institutions. Cities have several issues that need immediate intervention. And there are budding entrepreneurs and concerned citizens with ideas that can solve these problems.
Mantra for Design Your City is to Identify a Problem. Make a Team. Build a Solution.
We've already started working on solving problems conceptualized by various entrepreneurs associated with Design Your City.
eChai Runway :
At eChai Ventures, we believe that for any good support eco-system for entrepreneurs there five major things are required. Not that it should be just limited to these five things, but it will start with these crucial aspects.
- Community
- Skill-Building
- Infrastructure Support
- Global Context
- Financial Support
To some extent the in the first 5 years of eChai, we've primarily focused on building the community. Some of our programs ( eChai Demo Day, eChai Women In Business, eChai Business For Good, eChai After Hours, eChai On Campus, eChai RoundTable ) have been instrumental in bringing many young entrepreneurs together. i.e. 2000+ entrepreneurs have come on stage at eChai to share their stories and now with our Co. Rise. initiative - we will be reaching out to thousands of hundreds of entrepreneurs all across the globe.
Now the next phase of eChai will have many programs - both online & offline - focused on all of the above mentions aspects. We have already started eChai Insights ( Theme-based Knowledge Sharing session ) and eChai Skill-based Challenges ( eChai App Challenge, eChai Marketing Challenge, eChai Technology for Good Challenge, eChai Business Case Challenge etc. ).
Keeping all these things in the context, we will be starting the new program - eChai Runway.
For eChai Runway program, we will be selecting 20-25 entrepreneurs who will go thru the series of hands-on workshops i.e. User Experience, Sales, Communications & Digital Media, Venture Design, Team Building & Work Culture, Raising Capital, Legal & IP, Creative Thinking, Failures, Product Management, Growth Hacking etc. ) which are not just limited what\'s happening in the world or what is someone\'s experience but it will also include what should be done to particular start-up with respect to these very important aspects of building an enterprise - what should be their landing page ? What should Sales Strategy ? How do they build a team & company culture?
We will also help these entrepreneurs connect with potential partners and customers with support from eChai and Partners. We will have leading entrepreneurial leaders interact with eChai Runway participants and will also host online programs to collaborate with leading entrepreneurial communities across the globe.
On 3rd May, we will be hosting the launch program of eChai Runway where we will be introducing the selected entrepreneurs and mentors part of the eChai Runway program.
eChai Demo Day :
Our flagship program, eChai Demo Day is the quarterly showcase of innovative products & ventures in front of the large entrepreneurial community. eChai Demo Day provides an opportunity to entrepreneurs, mentors, investors, professionals, and students to share, connect and collaborate with each other.
eChai Women In Business :
Every month we host "eChai Women In Business" where we will have awesome women entrepreneur from diverse backgrounds sharing their insights and presenting their ideas/ventures in front of the eChai community. More than 100+ women entrepreneurs have been to various eChai programs to interact with fellow participants.
eChai RoundTable :
eChai RoundTables are the sector and theme specific knowledge sharing programs i.e. Food & Beverages, Internet of Things, Business For Good, Education, Marketing, Failures, Travel & Tourism, eCommerce, Cleantech, Healthcare, Agriculture etc.
eChai On Campus :
eChai On Campus is like a group of entrepreneurs visiting the cenertain college campus to interact with students, it's more like how a rock-band goes to colleges to perform , in a way we have entrepreneurs vising colleges to perform to promote the entrepreneurial culture among youth.
eChai After Hours :
eChai After Hours aims to engage entrepreneurs, professionals and students to find solutions for other's businesses challenges in a collaborative way.
At eChai After Hours entrepreneurs present their business model, their work culture and couple of significant challenges they are facing / struggling with or want to have people come up with better solutions for that. It can be anything – design challenge, business challenge, tech challenge, people challenge.
eChai After Hours is an amazing way to foster the collaboration among entrepreneurs, as they would be spending significant time and energy to help the fellow entrepreneurs.
eChai App Challenge :
eChai App Challenge aims to bring together developers , designers, professionals, and entrepreneurs to build mobile apps in 24 hours, compete for cash prizes, meet the community and develop skills, interact with other domains experts.
eChai Marketing Challenge :
eChai Marketing Challenge aims to provide an opportunity to entrepreneurs, professionals and students to showcase their marketing skills by creating marketing campaigns for participating companies, compete for cash prizes, meet the community and develop skills, interact with other domain experts and get an eChai experience.
eChai Diaries :
eChai Diaries aims to help entrepreneurs discover the entrepreneurial culture of different regions by organizing trips in unexplored destinations across the world with unique stories and actively engaging with local communities. So far, we have covered the Dangs and Valsad Forests in South Gujarat and Coastal Gujarat region of Saurashtra - in July we will be visiting Rajasthan and going forward eChai Diaries will go to Sri Lanka, Cambodia and Vietnam and other countries.
eChai TV :
eChaiTV is a web television featuring inspiring entrepreneurs. We put up the videos of our program on eChaiTV and we create specific content for eChaiTV i.e. The Rising Sun series - interview series with promising entrepreneurs and eChai With Pioneers - An Interview series with industry pioneers. Going forward we will be adding many different programs in eChaiTV.
Sweetly :
With Sweetly, we make handmade jewelry with design centers in villages ( one each in Sajupada Village, Dangs District & Kharoli Village, Surat District ) which we market in US & Canada. We have 35+ rural women working with us as Sweetly Designers who get some sort of economic benefits of employment thru Sweetly. It\'s a fascinating work as as most of these women were not artisans but today they do some fantastic work in terms of design and creativity.
Also we now have amazing entrepreneurs Sweta Joshi, Co-Founder, OurVadodara.in , Nishit Jariwala, Founder, BuddyBits.com, Vivek Sancheti, Founder, eYuva.com & Bhargav Joshi, Founder, Ampersand Technologies to lead eChai efforts in Vadodara, Surat & Rajkot cities respectively.
eChai has worked with some of the most prestigious organizations and institutions.
- Gujarat Chamber of Commerce and Industries (GCCI) Youth Wing
- Entrepreneurship Development Institute of India (EDI)
- Mudra Institute of Communications (MICA), Ahmedabad
- Forest Department, Government of Gujarat
- Center for Incubation Innovation & Entrepreneurship ( CIIE ), IIM Ahmedabad
- Gujarat Technological University (GTU) Innovation Council
- International Centre for Entrepreneurship & Technology (icreate)
- Labor & Employment Department, Government of Gujarat
- Nirma University
- Amrut Mody School of Management (AMSoM), Ahmedabad University
- VVP Engineering College, Rajkot
- SP Jain Institute of Management & Research (SPJIMR), Mumbai
- Sankalp Forum
- CEPT University
- VentureStudio, Ahmedabad University
- Confederation of Indian Industries ( CII ) - Young Indians
- PDPU Gandhinagar
- Atmiya Group of Institutions, Rajkot
- Gardi Vidyapith, Rajkot
- Marwadi Group of Institutions, Rajkot
- Xcellon School of Business
- Saffrony Institute of Technology, Mehsana
- Sakalchand Patel College of Engineering, Visnagar
- A D Patel Institute of Technology, Vallabhvidyanagar
- Silver Oak College of Engineering & Technology ( SOCET )
- Chaudhari Technical Institute, Gandhinagar
- LDRP Gandhinagar
If you are reading this and still looking for an exciting learning experience - you may join us as eChai Fellow :-)
Program Details :
1-3 months program ( no specific date as such for start of the program - but mostly we will start the batches from the 1st of every month - as we will have people joining us at different stages )
First of all you get to experience how we execute things and work with so many stakeholders on diverse projects - this alone would be good enough reason to join us :-)
You can pick up the project that you want to significantly work on or if someone is so awesome - then may be all of our projects :-)
You can contribute to projects with specific skills - Content Writing, Programming, Graphic Designing, Market Research, Public Speaking, Community Building, People Management, Student Relations, Creativity or anything else which we couldn't think of :-)
It is not a full time or residential program - you can still work with us even if your college is open. You can work from home - all you need is just the internet and intention of doing something inspiring. Though we will have regular team meets at our programs - which will anyhow be hosted almost every week if we consider all our programs. It is more of an interest based thing - you'll get time as long as you are passionately interested into something. We have a distributed team - I operate from Ideapad. Co-working initiative started by CIIE, IIM Ahmedabad, Parth contributes from his corporate office in Ahmedabad, Divyesh gives is valuable inputs from Toronto, Canada, Kunal & Arpana are based in Bardoli, Nisha works from Baroda and we have design centers in Dangs and Surat districts.
The eChai Fellowship program would require you to spend 1 Week in Dangs District ( we would manage all your costs in Dangs - Stay, Travel, and Food ) to get to experience the rural dangs and have an idea on the kind work we do at Sweetly. Also it's a very beautiful place to be in.
You don't get paid as eChai Fellow, also we don't charge any fees for the eChai Fellowship program.
At the end of the 3 months fellowship program - you'll be awarded the certificate at one of our eChai programs - but more than the certificate it is an amazing eChai experience that you'll cherish for the rest of your life.
If you would like join us for the - eChai Fellowship Program - then fill up this form :
https://docs.google.com/forms/d/196xeAwRWBnp8y98VGqc0GwyJdUJvzS1m48VKEjy2uks/viewform
For the criteria of selecting the eChai Fellows - we would just ask you one thing - What do exactly we do at eChai Ventures ? :-)
Basically as meet and discuss - we'll get an idea whether we can work with you or not - at the same time you'll also be able to figure out whether we would be good enough people for you to spend your 3 months with.
For any queries you can contact Jatin Chaudhary, Co-Founder & CEO, eChai Ventures at [email protected] or +91 87338 38470
PS: As Fellow at eChai Ventures you will get a chance to interact with some awesome entrepreneurs like this one :-)
