INDUSTRIAL VISITS 2021
The Department of Commerce and Management of Hindustan College had organized one day Industrial visit on 10th March of 2021 for the final year B.Com students which aimed at introducing different avenues of entrepreneurship. The students were accompanied by Dr. Harshavardhana, Assistant Professor, Department of Commerce and Management, Hindustan College and Mr. Raghunandan, Assistant Professor, Department of Commerce and Management, Hindustan College. The prime objective of the visit was to learn different opportunities available for an entrepreneur and witness the entrepreneurial spirit in different industries. At the time of organizing the visit, it was carefully crafted such that the students are to be exposed to different industries and hence the following entrepreneurs were planned to meet.
1) Sri. A P Chandrashekhar, Indraprastha Organics
2) Sri. Viswaprasad Alva, Skanray Technologies
The team left the campus by 10.00 in the morning and visited Indraprastha Organics a 13 acre farm owned and Managed by Sri. A P Chandrasekhar. Sri. A P Chandrasekhar is a mechanical engineer by training who dedicated his life towards farming. He has worked a 13 acre farm owned and Managed by Sri. A P Chandrasekhar. Sri. A P Chandrasekhar is a mechanical engineer by training who dedicated his life towards farming. He has worked a 13 acre farm for the past 25 years, nineteen years of which have been as an organic farmer. He has more than 2,500 species of plants on the farm, growing everything that can grow. His main crops are a combination of coconut, arecanut, lemons and vanilla. When he purchased the land it already had coconuts so he added several new varieties besides a host of other plants. Everything is intermixed. The plants can be broadly classified as commercial, medicinal, ornamental, food crops, tree crops, shrubs, creepers, tubers and grasses. Besides coconut, there are areca-nut, mango, banana, chickoo, pomegranate, coffee, paddy, turmeric, tamarind, ginger, arrowroot and collocacia plants grown on the farm. In each of these, there are several varieties. The farm has 200 varieties of fruit trees, 300 varieties of edible leaf plants and around 100 varieties of tubers. There is a store inside the farm with over 100 items on the shelf. There are products from every possible thing – there are standard medicinal products, soaps and toiletries, food grains, vegetables, fruits, jaggery, Jams, pickles, chutneys, juice concentrates, powders (sambar, rasam) and many more. Just to share the innovation of value addition – tidbits from orange and lemon pulp, sugar coated dried sapota, tamarind seeds and jackfruit seeds.
After understanding what it takes to be an Agripreneur (Agricultural Entrepreneur), the team left to meet Sri. Viswaprasad Alva, Skanray Technologies. Founded by a team of 40 medical technologists and engineers, many of whom left their jobs at the peak of their careers, Skanray makes high-frequency X-ray machines and other medical devices. While these devices are comparable to the world’s best, they come at about half the price. The company has set up a manufacturing facility at Mysore and is also setting up assembly plants in Brazil (along with a local investor) and West Asia.
Skanray Technologies is wholly-owned by promoters and angel investors, which includes Bangalore based entrepreneur Arun Kumar. All their products as well as their manufacturing facilities were introduced to the students by MS. Moulya, Department of Engineering and Design of Skanray technologies. As their product portfolio was considerably large which involved complex processes the visit was much longer than the expected one. The company was kind enough to arrange lunch for the entire team and was also kind enough to patiently explain various aspects of their business. The team headed back to the college campus around 5.30 in the evening.
