Conquest ended today. Yes, well it doesn’t sound that melodramatic considering it started yesterday.

It was also my first Conquest as the member of CEL. I had missed last years Conquest for I was away in Singapore taking part in IMS Quotient, a inter-college quiz competition. This years Conquest was interesting with a variety of speakers to cater to everyones interests.

The talks were good. Meeting the speakers in person was even better. I personally enjoyed interacting with Mahesh Murthy (the interaction was limited to me asking him a couple of questions), Prajakt Raut (who surprisingly has read this blog), Sharad Kamra, a consultant for NEN who has been really helpful and sees great potential in CEL, Gaurav Mishra (half of the linkbacks from this blog are directed to his) as well as Mary Joyce, a big digital activist (who I later found out was one of the think tanks behind the Obama campaign).

Listening to these guys speak at Conquest was interesting because everyone got something new to the table.

Mahesh Murthy’s speech was easily the largest crowd puller with some of the audience oozing out of the hall due to lack of seating (as well as standing) arrangement. But I think what impressed me the most was his “don’t throw this crap at my face” attitude. And when we did, he gave us a piece of his mind (and from what I heard from folks who had seen him at Eureka last year, he was being way too kind).

Start-up showcase was also a huge hit. Right after Murthy’s talk, undreds flocked to the stalls of Incredible India, Rang De, One Billion Minds and Greenobin. Rang De interested me quite a lot, specifically for the really low interest rate at which they gave loans wrt to some of the other players out there. I had also recently learnt of their new addition, Rang De education. I would have loved to have a chat with them about their future plans, but then the time didn’t permit me that. Oh well, I am sure to run into them sometime in the near future. One billion minds also seems like an exciting crowdsoucing project targetting a niche segment, the students. Greenobin would’ve made a killing had Satyam approached them before things got out of hand

Lots of hard work went behind this Conquest especially becase it was so early into the semester, so there was really not much time to take it easy. The hospitality team according to me did a fabulous job with my pals Karteek and Shruti leading the way and a very able team of juniors backing them up.

Kudos to everyone who was associated with Conquest 2009 and helped make it a success.

Do follow the conversation and tweets that revolved around Conquest at #conquest2009

Rishabh Kaul is Economics & Engineering student at BITS Pilani who is interested in entrepreneurship and social innovation. Check out his profile at Linkedin or buzz him at rishabhkaul[at]gmail[dot]com

So here’s another addition to the list of the already impressive list of speakers for this years Conquest.

Gaurav Mishra (complete bio here), who recently started his company 2020 Web Tech and is quoted by a few million tons of newspapers and blogs every single day for his views on digital activism and social media apart from other things.

He will be giving a talk on What Entrepreneurs can learn from Activists. After listening to his prerecorded talks (such as the one for Grassroutes) I am looking forward to hearing him speak in person. We contacted quite late and were a little unsure of his response for the man is always on the move, but the enthusiasm and readiness he showed to come to Pilani got us all charged up.

Of course I shall be live blogging during the event right here as well as the CEL blog

Rishabh Kaul is Economics & Engineering student at BITS Pilani who is interested in entrepreneurship and social innovation. Check out his profile at Linkedin or buzz him at rishabhkaul[at]gmail[dot]com

A couple of hours from now and I will be aboard an Indigo flight with heaps of luggage (mostly comprising of dirty clothes and books) piercing through the dawn sky towards Dilli.

But there’s no time to chill. Pilani beckons and more importantly, Conquest. This time BITS Pilani’s international B Plan competition will be held on 8-9th of August.

The speakers list is highly impressive. This time we have

Dr Ajit Ranade, Chief Economist, Aditya Birla Group

Mahesh Murthy, a Pinstormer and a  Seedfunder and (also benevolent enough to give his office space to the Bombay Quiz Club every week.)

Raj Gollamudi, Co-founder of Blue Stream Ventures (A look at their portfolio)

Prajakt Raut, founder of Orange Cross, a company that helps emplyers deliver healthcare to their employees. He has also served as the Asia Director of TiE.

Naren Dubey, COO of Scan Cafe (check out their profile on Crunchbase)

Sashikant Khandelwal, Founding member and the chief architect behind TheFind (who a little while back had 5 pending petents to his name, though will get more recent updates on the present condition).

Update:

More speakers:

Rahul Chandra, co-founder and Director at Helion Venture Partners.

Mukul Singhal,  an Associate at Canaan Partners

Sujit Panigrahi, ADG, Commonwealth Games 2010

Gayatri Rath, VP, Corporate Communications, GE

This time the finalists who will be making a trip down to the desert will include people from Ivy Leagues(Brown), ISB, NITIE, IIT B’s SJSOM, IIT R, IIM B and BITS Pilani. Making it this far itself speaks a lot about the merit of the B Plans. However the final showdown will take place in Pilani. More about the participants in coming posts.

I shall be live blogging Conquest, both on my blog in the Conquest section as well as the CEL blog and hopefully on twitter(@conquest2009) as well.

Rishabh Kaul is Economics & Engineering student at BITS Pilani who is interested in entrepreneurship and social innovation. Check out his profile at Linkedin or buzz him at rishabhkaul[at]gmail[dot]com