Espire – the entrepreneurship club of LIBA kick started the E-talk Series 1.0 with the esteemed guest Dr. C. Sylendra Babu IPS. Dr. C. Sylendra Babu serves as the Additional Director General of Police of the Railways (GRP) in Tamil Nadu. His zeal in directly engaging in rescue operations has won him several laurels. He is the recipient of the Chief Minister’s Medal for outstanding devotion to duty in 2000, Prime Minister’s Medal for saving the lives of 18 bus passengers in 2001, Chief Minister’s Police Medal for Gallantry in 2001, and President Police Medal for Meritorious Service in 2005.
Using his experience with the police department, he went on to speak on the topic “Intrapreneurship in Government”. Intrapreneurship is the act of behaving like an entrepreneur while working within a large organization. It is a practice of a corporate management style that integrates risk-taking and innovation approaches that are more traditionally thought of as being the province of entrepreneurship. He started off quoting Paulo Coelho’s “The Alchemist”. When a thief steals Santiago’s money, he decides to look for a way to make enough money to return home. He finds work in the shop of a crystal merchant, where he makes improvements that reap considerable financial rewards. Thus Santiago is an intrapreneur who made innovations in his shop.
In the police department, however there is not much room for innovation. But Dr.Sylendra Babu during his tenure as the commissioner of Coimbatore city introduced computer literacy programme in various schools in association with Lead India 2020.The schools in the area are also adopted by the local police station under the programme. He has organised free karate camps for children from the poor economic section. He has also initiated karate camps in various women’s colleges. He states that if you work towards your personal goal in an organization you can definitely achieve it. Being an intrapreneur makes you focus on the processes within an organization. They are the drivers of innovation within companies as seek to provide solutions to unique market driven problems. They seek policies, technologies and application that resolve a barrier to productivity increases.
An intrapreneur works for the greater good of the organization. In fact, it is often taking on intrapreneurial tasks that allow someone to build the skill needed to eventually become an entrepreneur. Basically, intrapreneurship is the first step on the ladder to becoming an entrepreneur. As an intrapreneur builds the aptitude to recognize and solve important problems they build the skills necessary to one day start a company. He concluded the speech saying that self motivation is very important and self motivated Individuals make for better intrapreneurs as they know their responsibilities and goals better. He appealed the students to become self disciplined and become future intrapreneurs in organizations.