Aspiring Entrepreneurship and Cricket

I did not even realise that I had missed the last week's post, this is how busy it is turning out to be... ironical when compared with many of my friends as they are saying its getting easier, probably its because its coming to the practical end where we need to find jobs and so the courses are becoming light and since I am pursuing my independent project with utmost importance its going tighter for me.

To summarise, we had our presentation with Gary during this gap - to which this post belongs ;) and he was very impressed with our presentation.  We had put in great effort in the presentation and so we were happy that its given fruits.  Now the hard work is to make a solid business plan and second presentation to impress Gary again and this time the VCs and Angels as well.

The aspiring entrepreneurs day in between at the Shrivenham campus also was a good experience in terms of what VCs expect etc.  Our ENT project on a chicken shop also went well with most of our audience giving a good feedback about the event and the food.

MCL has just got over, Cranfield lost :( due to rain... well... the story is a bit longer than that... we were one of the best teams of MCL and everyone knew it.  However since we had to play indoor due to rain, luck came into picture and none of us were really prepared for softball cricket whereas the other team that we played had really prepared well for that.

Entrepreneurship looks very attractive now, I am really realising many weaknesses in me and trying to find people who can complement such strengths, whenever those are weaknesses that I cannot change in the short term.  I think from the way it is going, that things are working out fine.  God willing things will get better and we will have a successful Enterprise by the end of next year.

Venture Day and the MBAT that did not happen

With my previous posts, one would not be very wrong in assuming that I would have travelled to the MBAT to participate in the tournament, however as fate would have it, it proved both physically and economically non-viable to attend the MBAT, I did not travel to the tournament a very sad thing but then life is always unfair :).

What I did attend as a result was venture day, which is an annual entrepreneurship event.  This was in some ways an eye opener for me.  Two opposition party MPs sitting next to each other and addressing a crowd about a common social issue with dignity and respect for each other was a surprise, but thats how it is done in the UK. Something  politicians from my country can learn from.  The events were arranged with an young entrepreneur in mind and not a student, so initially I had difficulties in understanding the event and making the most of it, but later on, the idea set in and I began to make complete sense of the event and enjoyed it.

I and a few of my classmates were volunteers for this event which meant we also got the credit :) for organising it, even though most of the work was done by two ladies from the Bethany Centre for Entrepreneurship.  Looking forward to working with the same team for EBPYC (European Business Plan of the Year Competition).  This is the last year that EBPYC would be hosted by Cranfield and so its a nice chance to see it being hosted here.

Our lessons moved along slowly, but on the sports side our team (MBA cricket team in which I am a part of) defeated the Cranfield University cricket team in an event last Sunday, this was a great starter before the MCL (MBA Cricket League) tournament, which would happen towards the end of this month.  We also finalised the presentation for the first stage of our independent project and would present it to the project sponsor by next week.

Life is getting busier, clearer and calmer I should say day by day.

Inaction - Productivity Loss - Calm before Storm Phase

This seems to be a common trend in Cranfield, there would be two or three weeks of no activity, then two or three weeks of tension, to complete the assignments and then two or three weeks of exams, now that makes a term.

Last week was a truly boring week with two classes and one of them being an audit for me.

Significant activities are our progress towards entrepreneurship project.  We are also progressing very well along our independent project.  My computer crashed mid way during the week and that put a lot of plans to the side, being busy with data recovery.

Challenges Worldwide, the field trip for our IBE conducted their training and a related CMCE training this weekend, the training was truly useful not only for the assignment but as a very good learning towards a social entrepreneurship career.  

The Sandwich Holiday Week

Well, the topic just came to my mind when I though about something unique for this week, we had the Easter weekend to begin with and the royal wedding weekend at the end, leaving just 3 working days and 2 days of classes, next week would be the same as well, so its all going sluggishly at the moment.

Cricket practices, an outing to ISKCON temple, a weekend potluck party all were memorable events of this week, but there is nothing academic about it.  The implementing change and entrepreneurship lectures that we had were interesting, but I guess the holiday mood continued during the week too.

This is somehow a trend, a slowish few weeks and then suddenly things pick up, this term especially would be much busier with lot of subjects primarily concentrating on assignments rather than exams.

Next weekend would be really busy as I have two days training for the IBE (International Business Experience). Challenges worldwide is conducting a training on this, we also have to make some preparations for the training, as it nears the trip to Uganda is looking really exciting. 


Next week is also expected to be significant as I am expecting to take an important interview, I am sure a reject would not be the end of the road, but certainly a success would keep the mood good.  I also need to assess if the role would actually fit my expectations, lets see.

Our project is taking off slowly but steadily, we are collecting data pertaining to the market and the demographics of the industry from databases, contacts and all sources we know, there would be an interim meeting in this month end, we hope to make an impressive presentation there too.

The changes the MBA program would make in me are slightly visible these days, with a bit of modulation in my behavior and thought processes, I hope that the process ends well by the end of the year.

Lots of hopes :) in this post, but hopes make life interesting isnt it?