If you wish to do something in life, start ‘Now’. This is the basic idea behind #Start Ab, a series of conversations and inspiring narratives by change-makers from Facebook.
The latest in the #Start Ab series organised in association with Josh Talks witnessed some of the most-talked-about young entrepreneurs interact with students of the Indian Institute of Management - Kozhikode (IIM-K)on Sunday.
The session started with Manikandan, who created ‘Sprero’, India’s first crowd-funded electric bike. Manikandan’s focus on protection of environment as the need of the hour set the tone for the day-long conversation.
Local boy Jabir Karat, founder and CEO of Green Worms, explained his ‘zero-waste’ principle, which, he said, would make events waste-free. His organisation has answers to those clueless about waste disposal after major events. Jijo Kuriakose, founder of ‘Queerala’, spoke about his mission to eliminate the taboo about being a queer in India and how his LGBTQ support community helped change society’s attitude towards sexual minorities in the State.
How they did it
Rajiv Pulavur, who has been in the field of shadow puppetry for the last 21 years, explained the efforts made by him to revive the 2000-year-old art form which was rapidly disappearing.
N. Rajiv was the only established politician in the group. This panchayat president from Eraviperoor was instrumental in getting the grama panchayat four State awards and a national honour, outdoing not just other panchayats, but metro cities too.
Rajiv shared his experiences and insights from implementing e-governance, drinking water projects, free wi-fi system, and an effective waste management mechanism in the panchayat.
Madhumita Bhattacharya, programme lead of ‘Team Indus’, the country’s first private aerospace company; Kshitij Behl who started ‘Echoes’, a cafe in Delhi that employs differently-abled people, and Maneesha Panicker who set up ‘Kayal’, an island retreat that hit the popularity charts of tourists quickly, were the others who shared their inspiring stories with IIM-K students.
From the way the students appreciated the stories, the #Start Ab fraternity of entrepreneurs will soon have many more young entrepreneurs joining it.