BELAGAVI: All India Council for Technical Education (AICTE) Chairman Dr Anil Sahasrabudde has stressed on promoting startups as it is essential to turn engineers into entrepreneurs with jobs in large industries dwindling.
“AICTE is putting its energies on creating the right environment to promote entrepreneurship among engineering students, as there seems to be no way out other than promoting startups among the youth,'' he said.
Delivering the convocation address at Visvesvaraya Technological University (VTU), Belagavi on Tuesday, he said in its attempt to create entrepreneurs, AICTE was promoting colleges to train students in entrepreneurship and would provide students of all branches with courses in management, market study, product development and finances.
They will also be trained in soft skills, like communication techniques required to introduce new products, or seek user feedback, he added. “Each college would be mandated to act like a facilitator for start-ups. The college may either seek funds from the NITI Ayog or the department of science and technology or it may spend its own money. But they should set up incubators and put in place a system to train students in entrepreneurship and handhold them till they successfully create products out of their ideas,” he said.
He urged students not to be afraid to fail as most of successful people and organisations failed and learnt from their mistakes. “ISRO has failed and learnt. We have failed and learnt. So you should go ahead and try and be successful entrepreneurs,” he said.
Vacant seats
According to Sahasrabudde, a related problem was the fall in the number of engineering admissions with half of seats vacant across the country. And in some states, the number of students passing out of the science stream after 12th standard was more than the number of engineering seats which was a matter of concern, but is also an opportunity for AICTE to introspect and improve. “We should aim at getting students from SAARC and other countries. This will call for a relook at our teaching–learning methods. On the other hand, several Indian students go abroad for graduate courses. If we increase the quality of education, we can retain them. In this way, we not only save valuable foreign exchange, but also earn it,” he said.
Bigger hackathon
Buoyed by last year’s successful pan India hackathon, AICTE plans to conduct a bigger one this year, he said adding that last year 40,000 students came up with ideas and suggestions to nearly 600 problem statements from 29 government departments. They sat non-stop for 36 hours in 26 different centres across the country. Of the ideas given by 1,400 teams, 10,000 were shortlisted. Among them, 50 were implemented by various departments. This year, the hackathon would be bigger and better, he said.
Already 45 government departments and 22 states approached AICTE with problem statements. “We will have the hackathons in 30-40 centres this year and involve more students. While last year we only had a software hackathon, this year we will have a software and hardware hackathon, where students will develop prototypes as solutions to problems,” Dr Sahasrabuddhe said.
Online courses
With the support of Union Human Resources Ministry, AICTE developed Swayam, a platform for Massive Online Open Courses (MOOC) to help students get free access to study material, he said. He pointed out that while boys got 27 medals, girls won 57 medals at Tuesday's convocation which reflected a shift in trends in education and proved that things were changing for the better.
Doctorate for ISRO Chairman
ISRO Chairman A.S. Kirankumar was awarded the Doctor of Science, an honorary degree by VTU at its 17th annual convocation in Belagavi on Tuesday. On receiving the award, Kirankumar attributed it to his organisation and its staff. Earlier, State Governor Vajubhai Vala presented gold medals to all toppers of VTU. Sachin Keerthi from Adichunchanagiri Institute of Technology, Chikkamagaluru, topper among all BE students of VTU with 13 gold medals, while A. Prathysha, S. Bindu, Rajat Hogarti, K.S. Arpita were given five gold medals apiece for emerging first in their respective branches in BE examinations.
