Chennai: In an attempt to encourage the spirit of entrepreneurship in students, the Indian Institute of Technology (IIT), Madras has come up with "deferred placements" this year. With the launch of this initiative, students need not register now for placement this year. They can try their best to become entrepreneurs for a year and if they fail at it they could still sit for placement next year. IIT-M's initiative comes on the lines of IIT-Bombay, which launched it two year ago.
Speaking to Deccan Chronicle, Vishranth Suresh, academic affairs secretary at IIT-Madras said that a few students who were interested in startups expressed hesitation to pursue their ventures due to the risk involved and instead chose to sit for placements.
"Keeping in mind the interests of such students and as a move to promote entrepreneurship, we launched the deferred placement this year. This has been made into a separate rule and students were informed during the general body meeting to create awareness about the existence of this possibility," he said.
Suresh added that students had not yet opted to avail the option. Considering the fact that placements would start only on December 1, the institute expects students to register for the deferred placement within the next couple of weeks.
Pointing out that IITians were extremely creative and become successful entrepreneurs, Prof Ashwin Mahalingam, faculty advisor of IIT-M's Cell for Technology Innovation, Development and
Entrepreneurship Support (C-TIDES) said that the institute offers MS in entrepreneurship programme for students to pursue their idea with assistance from IIT-Madras.
"This is to help students become successful entrepreneurs," he said.
Explaining how the initiative works, Prof Avijit Chatterjee, professor-in-charge of placement at IIT-Bombay says that the scheme was launched two years ago but was not publicised too well as the norms were yet to be thrashed out.
"Last year one student was selected from the applications received," Prof Chatterjee said.
Mr Mohak Mehta, placement manager at IIT-Bombay, pointed out that the placement cell received 14 applications and 10 students would most probably qualify for deferrals, which makes IIT-Bombay the first institute in the country to offer the maximum deferrals thus allowing students to take up entrepreneurship.
