<p>The Hon’ble Minister of Road Transport and Highways Mr. Nitin Gadkari and Member of Parliament Mr. Rajeev Chandrasekhar were two of the prominent speakers in the pre-summit of ECell at IIT Bombay on January 5, 2019.</p><p>Mr. Gadkari said, “India is a rich country with poor population. India has the potential to become no. 1 economic power in the world”. He encouraged the idea of rewarding people who work efficiently and penalize people for their insincere work.</p><p>According to him, fast-track decision-making, transparency, teamwork and appropriate leadership are more important than technology and resources which can be bought, in converting an innovative idea into a successful business.</p><p>Entrepreneurial spirit in India can be boosted by providing funds to every capable person.</p><p>Mr. Gadkari quoted, “You can donate an eye but not vision”. He advised young students to focus on their strength and overcome weaknessness, if any, to develop a positive attitude towards life.</p><p>The other two speakers of the day were actor Kunal Kapoor and Zaheer Adenwala - the co-founders of ‘Ketto’, an online crowd funding platform. Crowd funding is the process of collecting small amount of money from large amount of people for social, entrepreneurial, creative and many other causes. Some basic problems of the offline money raising by NGOs are high cost of fund raising of 50-60%, serious attitude of ecosystem towards social causes and difficulties in reaching out to the people. Now, the online cost of fund raising has been decreased to 8%.</p><p>‘Ketto’ is an online bridge between people who can help and people that need helping. It is mainly used for medical causes. There are around 10,000 campaigns active at a time on ‘Ketto’. It has successfully raised 300 crores of funds in last 6 years. It works with hospitals directly in case of medical purposes. It is mandatory for the person who is raising money through ‘Ketto’ to submit all documents of hospital and doctor to validate the claim made by the person. ‘Ketto’ is also used to raise funds for start-ups.</p><p>Kunal Kapoor said, “It is very heartening to see young people involve in social causes”. The basis of ‘Ketto’ is donation and not loan. So there is no need to pay back the money.</p>
E-Cell IIT Bombay: Union Minister Nitin Gadkari addresses Pre-Summit