-Contributed by Veera Mavalwala
Day 1 of the World SME Conference organized by Milagrow Business & Knowledge Solutions kicked off on 12 December 2008 with a simple ceremony of Release of Milagrow Study “State of India MSMEs 2008” by Dr Jagdish Sheth, Charles H Kellstadt Professor of Marketing in the Goizueta Business School at Emory University, followed by an inaugural address by the Founder Director Mr Rajeev Karwal welcoming the august gathering of Speakers – from India and overseas - Government officials, media and a hall full of delegates from all over India. During the day other Milagrow Studies were released -“Government backed initiatives and the progress of MSMEs in India” and “Women Entrepreneurs of MSME Clusters in Hyderabad – How Women bettered Men”,
The Emcee then introduced the first Speaker of the Day, Mr Pravir Kumar, Jt Secretary, Ministry of MSME. He was bombarded with questions, which he tried to answer in a diplomatic way. He apprised the audience on the steps being taken by the Ministry to help the MSMEs in the country. The Media thronged him after his talk to get ‘bites’ for their TV and newspapers.
Mr V Vaidyanathan, Executive Director, ICICI Bank then gave a bank’s perspective of “Winning in difficult Times” – he explained how the bank functions in these difficult and “Rocking Times”. He too had to answer a lot of difficult questions which the media and audience wanted answers for.
With some humor the Emcee introduced the next Speaker of the morning, Mr Guriqbal Singh Jaiya, Director SMEs from WIPO Geneva, who gave his views on intellectual property and how this can be used as a sustainable competitive tool by the MSMEs.
