Posts Tagged Entrepreneurship
New Mentors for Foreign Internships, IIT-JEE, CAT and Engineering
Sukruth Pillarisetti: B.E – Manufacturing & Automation from N.S.I.T ‘07
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Sukruth aced CAT in 2006 with a near perfect score of 99.65% before joining IIM-K. He has a B.E in Manufacturing & Automation from N.S.I.T.
Apart from being able to help you with preparation for MBA entrance tests like CAT, FMS and SNAP especially in areas of verbal and comprehension and on selection procedure to B-Schools, he can also mentor students on career related matters as he has experience with top MNCs like FREUDENBERG GROUP, GERMANY as a summer associate and at HAL (AEROSPACE & DEFENSE).
Gaurav Maheshwari: M.Sc in Statistics & Informatics, Intern Iowa State & University of Rostock, DAAD scholar ‘11
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Currently a senior in IIT-KGP, Gaurav is one of the few students who despite the economic slowdown in 2008 managed to secure a foreign internship while only in his sophomore year of study.
He interned at Iowa State University for two consecutive summers since 2008 and is experienced in the fields of Image processing and Optical Networks. Having numerous internship offers currently in hand he is adapt in the know-how of making it in engineering careers in India and abroad.
His availability for consultation through the weekdays and weekends makes him the apt mentor to choose if you are looking for mentoring on rigorous areas such as undergraduate Internships in USA, Europe and preparation for IIT-JEE.
Prajani KC: IIT-R ‘04, University of Arizona, Eller College of Management’ 10
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Prajani, a motivated mentor who currently is the VP of Website development for National Association of Women MBAs. She holds a B.E in CS & Engineering from IIT-R and will be graduating with an MBA (majoring in MIS) from University Of Arizona in 2010.
Her strong analytical skills, diligence and proven to be an effective mediator between the client and the technical team in her 4 year experience in the IT industry, these skills were apparent in her summer internship in Mexico as a management consultant.
She is the mentor you are looking for if your area of consultation is to pursue an MBA in USA, cracking GMAT. She can also provide valuable insights on Cover letter & Essay Writing.
Share on FacebookMentoring students online – The Hindu Story on MentorPolis.com
The post as it appeared in The Hindu – Chennai and Hyderabad Edition on 31st August 2009.
Hindu MentorPolis Article
“If collegemates meet up, they would probably discuss favourite spots on campus, or talk about their professors, or possibly recall funny anecdotes that their batch witnessed. But this four, who are alumni of the Indian Institute of Technology – Delhi, went beyond.
Anshuman Chaudhary, Avijit Sharma, Anshul Aggarwal and Pratik Aggarwal of IIT-Delhi, who were lucky to have very helpful seniors, realised that not all students had mentors to help them through the challenging decision-making phase that is part of college life.
“While most students follow what others around them are doing, they may be unaware of their true potential and opportunities that exist in the outside world,” says Anshuman, who works from Mumbai, with his other three Delhi-based colleagues.
Thus was born www.mentorpolis.com — a portal that seeks to help students and professionals looking for advice on higher education or career. “Mentors not only help people in identifying the most suitable places for them, they also guide them to reach those places.”
The portal enables visitors to obtain Career guidance from experts in different fields. Course-specific mentoring as well strategy-based mentoring is provided by a panel of mentors representing different academic disciplines and professions.
“When we started, our own IIT seniors and their secondary contacts were the first buyers of idea and were enrolled as mentors. Hence, the starting point was engineering and management,” says Anshuman.
How it works
MentorPolis boasts of mentors from top institutions such as Harvard Business School, Stern School, New York City, Stanford and Yale.
Considering that mentoring is a continuous process demanding systematic interaction and consistency in guidance, it could be a challenging service, particularly when it is offered online.
Aware of this challenge, team MentorPolis employs a mix of web and telephone-based counselling process. A candidate seeking guidance could browse the site and look at mentor profiles. After this, they could select a suitable mentor, schedule communication, pay for the consultation request and subsequently keep connecting with the mentor.
Once a call is scheduled, MentorPolis dials out to both the mentor as well as the ‘mentee’ to connect them on phone. The subsequent follow-up, rescheduling and document transfer, if any, takes place online. “We provide an online collaboration space for the mentor and ‘mentee’ to interact after they are finished with the telephonic consultation. Such a collaborative environment ensures that the ‘mentee’ is in continuous touch with the mentor for any future guidance or doubts.” The team is also working on an offline model to serve people who are not very comfortable with web as a medium.
In a span of three months, over 700 ‘mentees’ have registered with MentorPolis. The users are mostly from the Tier-1 and Tier-2 cities. “Our team has already started the marketing campaign in the Tier-2 cities, as these are the places where our need is felt the most.”
Interestingly, quite a few people abroad have also shown interest in the services and have registered for them.
The young team of entrepreneurs, which has worked out an interesting revenue model, seems quite eager to make sure candidates get the best. ‘Web Seminars’ featuring the mentor panel are also offered free for all registered users. “We want to make the right kind of advice available for candidates when it matters the most!”
MEERA SRINIVASAN ”
You can access this article here.
Share on FacebookWant to go to Harvard? Hire a guide – Mid Day Story on MentorPolis
The post as it appeared in Mid-Day – Delhi Edition on 25th June 2009.
Mid-Day MentorPolis Article
Wish you could get an ex-MIT honcho to help you with your aspirations, instead of that monotonous coaching class? Three young IITians are busy building a stream-specific mentor-mentee nexus
If only foreign studies could be figured on Facebook, and tutors came via Twitter, social networking would’ve lost all the frivolity it’s associated with. But since super-specialised interest groups are still a rarity in the country, there has to be another way to work around it, especially when it comes to education and career. A bunch of young IITians found this way fast, and headed to form a communication channel that brings together achievers and aspirants for career guidance. Called Mentorpolis, their project allows accomplished mentors to hold seminars and consultation sessions with fuchcha mentees, and both the sides can pick people as per their needs and deeds. 
Who’s who
Here’s a clear picture of how the whole thing happens. Mentees are high school students, undergraduates and young professionals looking for authentic information and personal guidance, whereas mentors, in this case, are senior students and professionals who have ‘been in mentee shoes’, have ‘made it’, and thus can suggest solutions to the former segment’s problems. Their current list of the latter includes students from IIT, IIM, Stanford, Harvard and other top MBA and engineering schools. They are armed with enough experience to give you all the gyaan on MBAs in India and abroad, entrepreneurship and engineering. “To begin with, we wanted to concentrate on the most major educational concerns. But less stereotypical subjects will also be taken up gradually. Law and Commerce are coming up,” says Avijit Sharma, co-founder.
The connect
Just a month into operation, the project has already enrolled about 600 students as mentees, and about 60-65 mentors. The latter’s credibility is measured on time commitment (how many hours they can spare in a week), referrals, experiential assessment, academic portfolio and previous mentoring records. Anyone can apply for either category. Once a mentee furnishes his specific needs in the form available on their website, the administrators get busy with matchmaking. “We check backgrounds, and think of somebody who has the same kind of a history; similar circumstances lead to a better connect. Then, we further the filters and see who’s equipped enough,” explains Avijit. Then, the prospective mentor and mentee get to decide if they’re up for each other. If it doesn’t work out, alternatives are arranged for. The service is pan-continental, with its headquarters in the capital. Once a ‘pair’ is made, they interact through Web seminars, telephonic consultation and in-person meetings, if proximity allows.
Fee good factor
At a fee of Rs 500 per session, is the facility worth it? “It’s true that you tend to find mentors in your own immediate circles, but I, for instance, couldn’t find one for entrepreneurship. The problem is pretty rampant in tier two cities, and that’s where we come in. If you’re not satisfied with the counselling, there’s always the option of cashback. A feedback mechanism is also well in place,” Avijit signs off.
You can access this article here.
Share on FacebookCareer Log – Indian Express Story on MentorPolis
The post as it appeared in Indian Express – Delhi Edition on 21st June 2009.
IndianExpress MentorPolis Article
After graduating from IIT Delhi two years ago, Avijit Sharma, 23, faced a common dilemma: what next. “My friends’ formula was to opt for an MBA and then grab a job in a well-paying multinational firm,” says Sharma, who settled for a job instead. But he continued looking for a solution to such questions. After brainstorming with friends at his Gurgaon home last November, the mechanical engineering graduate thought of a platform that brought mentors together for dispensing career and educational guidance, available at the click of a mouse.
On May 1 this year, Sharma started an online portal, mentorpolis.com, for fresh graduates and young professionals to help them make informed career decisions. “We always look to our immediate seniors and friends whenever we want to take an important decision that could impact our career. But at times we end up making the wrong choices because we could not get timely advice. We want to do away with that problem,” says Sharma, who quit his job with a Bangalore software firm earlier this year. He teamed up with two friends and IIT alumni Anshul Agrawal and Pratik Agarwal to carry the concept forward.
The portal has got over 600 registered users in the age group of 17-25, comprising under-graduates, fresh graduates, young professionals and those looking for a change of job. They also provide advice on entrepreneurship. A Facebook community and a group on LinkedIn network help with the publicity.
The mentors are usually students with an impeccable academic record. “We receive entries from students keen on advising people about careers and courses. After scanning their educational qualifications and personal bio data, the potential mentors were short-listed based on their credentials,” explains Anshul, a civil engineering graduate, who helped design the website. At present, the portal only has mentors from the engineering and business fields and provides career advice on jobs in the automotive sector, finance, consultancy and FMCG sectors. The pool of mentors includes graduates from Harvard Business School, Stern School of Business, New York, Indian School of Business and the IIMs in the business stream and students from Stanford, MIT and the IITs from the engineering stream.
“We rope in mentors at various levels for catering to the varying needs of the students,” explains Pratik, who recently successfully mentored an IIT graduate on how to clear the GMAT, TOEFL and application essays needed for an admission into Yale Business School. “Since I had recently cleared the admission process for Harvard Business School, I was better clued in on the preparations needed for such business schools,” he explains.
At present those seeking advice can speak to the mentors over the phone for a fee of Rs 500 per call or chat with them through webinars or online live seminars or post their queries on online message boards—free of cost. “We are charging the telephone fee to run our operational costs. Plus we are saving students thousands of rupees which they would otherwise have invested in coaching institutes,” says Anshul.
Next, the trio hopes to rope in mentors for the humanities, law and other professional streams. “Since we are engineering students, it was a natural inclination that we opted for mentors in science streams first,” says Sharma.
You can access this article here.
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MentorPolis.com is a communication channel that connects mentees who seek academic and professional advice, with accomplished and suitable mentors via Telephone Consultations, In-person meetings and Web Seminars. Read More
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