- EDII’s 8th Dr VG Patel Memorial Lecture spotlights India’s entrepreneurial opportunity
- ALEAP founder calls for manufacturing, digitalisation, innovation and exports to power next growth phase
- 532 nominations from 18 countries underline global reach of National Entrepreneur Trainer-Motivator Awards
- Mahesh Savani urges entrepreneurs to turn success into a force for social good
- 3 distinguished achievers honoured across traditional, new-age and social entrepreneurship
NE NEWS SERVICE
AHMEDABAD, SEPT 7
India’s next economic leap will not be powered by big businesses alone but by the ability to transform local enterprise, grassroots innovation and women-led entrepreneurship into engines of national prosperity, Association of Lady Entrepreneurs of India (ALEAP) President Rama Devi Kanneganti said at the 8th Dr VG Patel Memorial Lecture organised by the Entrepreneurship Development Institute of India (EDII) in Ahmedabad on Sunday.
Delivering the memorial lecture on ‘From Local Strength to National Prosperity’, Rama Devi said India was at a crucial point in its economic journey, armed with a powerful domestic market, a young population, a rapidly expanding digital economy and a vibrant startup ecosystem.
“Our domestic market itself is a tremendous strength,” she said, underlining the opportunities being created by Make in India, Startup India and Digital India for entrepreneurs to innovate, formalise and scale.
Digital platforms, she added, were enabling even small businesses in villages and towns to reach customers across India and increasingly global markets. With India’s economy around $3.9 trillion and its ambition of becoming the world’s third-largest economy, she said the opportunity ahead was enormous.
“If we sustain strong growth and combine our domestic strength with manufacturing, digitalisation, innovation and exports, the opportunity ahead is enormous,” Rama Devi said, pointing to the possibility of India moving towards a $10–12 trillion economy over the next decade or so.
Her message was rooted in a career devoted to making entrepreneurship accessible to women. In a recent interaction, she described her motivation in simple terms: “Whatever little change I want to bring, I will do it.” She has also emphasised that given the right opportunity, even a micro woman entrepreneur can grow into a major industrialist.
Entrepreneurship must carry a social conscience
The event also brought together entrepreneurship and philanthropy through the presence of Mahesh Savani, Chairperson, P. P. Savani Group, who presented the awards and called upon entrepreneurs to look beyond wealth creation.
“Entrepreneurship brings the best out of a person. It helps create wealth, which can be constructively used for progress of society. Every entrepreneur must be conscious about giving back to society,” Savani said.
He stressed that sustained social impact could emerge when successful entrepreneurs consciously identify gaps in society and contribute meaningfully.
“Even a small effort, over a period of time, leads to a mega impact,” he said, urging entrepreneurs to keep innovating while simultaneously finding ways to serve society.
Savani’s own public life has repeatedly reflected this philosophy of giving. In an earlier interaction on his social initiatives, he described his mass-marriage initiative as his way of “giving back to society”, stressing that there was nothing more pious for him than helping daughters marry with dignity.
“Only such an approach can create a permanent legacy,” Savani said at the EDII event, congratulating the Institute for nurturing entrepreneurs with values and ethics.
Remembering the architect of entrepreneurship education
EDII Director General Sunil Shukla recalled the exceptional contribution of the Institute’s founder, late Dr VG Patel, who passed away on April 4, 2019.
Dr Patel played a pioneering role in establishing entrepreneurship as a structured and learnable discipline and in demonstrating its importance to India’s social and economic development.
“Entrepreneurship has come a long way and has been recognized as an engine of growth,” Shukla said, adding that India was progressively building a conducive startup ecosystem through policy support and the convergence of government, industry and academia.
He said EDII shouldered the responsibility of nurturing entrepreneurs and their inventive spirit through outcome-oriented initiatives backed by academia, government and corporates.
The annual memorial lecture series was instituted in 2019 to commemorate Dr Patel’s contribution and continues to focus each year on entrepreneurship and its relevance to India.
532 nominations, 18 countries, 25 States
The occasion also featured the Dr VG Patel National Memorial Awards for Entrepreneurship Trainer/Educator/Mentor 2026.
Instituted by EDII in 2020, the awards honour Dr Patel’s vision of creating a strong cadre of entrepreneurship trainer-motivators capable of sustaining India’s entrepreneurship movement.
This year, the awards attracted 532 nominations from 18 countries, 25 Indian States and 302 institutions, highlighting the expanding footprint of entrepreneurship education and mentoring.
Three entrepreneurs honoured
In the Traditional/Conventional Entrepreneurship Category, Dr Pradeep Srivastava, Professor, IIT Banaras Hindu University, Varanasi, was honoured for more than three decades of work in entrepreneurship, innovation and technology development. His credentials include 200-plus research publications, 15 patents, four books, mentoring of more than 20 startups and training of over 1,000 startups and faculty members.
In the New-Age Entrepreneurship Category, Balram Sankaran, Scientist-G (Senior Grade), Sree Chitra Tirunal Institute for Medical Sciences & Technology, Thiruvananthapuram, was recognised for his contribution to medical-device commercialisation, technology transfer and deep-tech healthcare entrepreneurship.
The Social Entrepreneurship Category honoured Rama Devi Kanneganti, Founder and President of ALEAP, for more than three decades of work in women’s entrepreneurship and socio-economic development. Since establishing ALEAP in 1993, she has helped build an ecosystem of training, mentorship and enterprise support that has impacted more than 350,000 women, created 55,000-plus livelihoods and supported women-focused green industrial parks and social entrepreneurship initiatives.
Certificates of Appreciation were also presented to Dr K S Chandrasekar, Vice Chancellor, Cluster University of Jammu; Dr Ramanan Ramanathan, Governing Board Member, India AI Mission and former Mission Director, Atal Innovation Mission; and Dr Nilesh Priyadarshi, Founder & CEO, Kaarigar Clinic, Ahmedabad.
The proceedings began with floral tributes to Dr VG Patel, reaffirming the enduring legacy of a man who transformed entrepreneurship from an idea into a discipline—and entrepreneurship education into an instrument of national development.
