Businessmen, visionaries and young entrepreneurs filled the room on the TiE Entrepreneurs Awards Nite on Monday evening. The mission: to inspire. Speeches were made, inspiring audio visual clips played and business models with tremendous potential recognised with a diverse range of awards. “Our biggest challenge in Tamil Nadu is when we approach entrepreneurs to recognise them, they often say: ‘illa – our work will speak for itself, we don’t want to be recognised’,” revealed Ramaraj R, Chairman, TiE Con (The Indus Entrepreneurs), Chennai. But he added quickly, “We do it because the important thing is to create role models.”
The major awards that were presented were the Lifetime Achievement award to Dr Badrinath SS, founder of Sankara Nethralaya, Super Achiever of the Year to Vasudevan P N, CEO, Equitas and Outstanding Entrepreneur of the Year, CEO CAMS. All the awards were presented by Geet Sethi, former world billiards champion and entrepreneur himself, having co-founded Olympic Gold Quest, a company committed to promoting sports talent helping athletes achieve their Olympic dreams.
“Entrepreneurs and sports persons are not very different,” said Geet Sethi. He elaborated, “We’re both risk takers and hardworking, but more than anything we strive for excellence.” The billiards champ went on to converse with the audience through an informal parley of Q and A, recalling instances from his career and challenges along the way.
Also, part of the evening was a wine tasting session, followed by a wine and cheese dinner for the awardees.