Role of startups in rebooting the post-corona economy

As it stands today, the COVID-19 pandemic has resulted in the loss of jobs a statement economy. The economy has to be rebooted quickly at this juncture to achieve the target of a 5 trillion dollar economy by 2024 set by the union government.

The youth need to use their skills to improve everyone’s life. What if we can bring wealth to the population through technology and elevate ourselves in terms of wealth? Rather than being job seekers, this is the time for our youngsters to become the wealth and job creators.

Start-up is a process wherein a company is established to implement the ideas originated by a solo member or a group of people that may lead to the development of a product and a sustainable business. Even though a start-up can range from starting a vegetable mart to chai chowk to a technology product, the one area where a start-up can reap rich benefit is in the Information Technology (IT) sector.

Few of the present-day start-ups that have made big in front of our eyes are Facebook, Google, Instagram, WhatsApp, Uber, and homegrown start-ups like Flipkart, Ola, Paytm and others.

Why do we need to encourage start-ups?

The one-word answer is Jobs. In the current scenario where many employment generating sectors such as Information Technology, infrastructure and Retail are facing issues, the youth should take a lead and focus their energy on innovative activities. We
have to imbibe the start-up culture into our younger generation with much fervour.

India is a country with a high number of engineering colleges which churns out lakhs of engineers. Isn’t it the ideal time to tap this huge potential?

Both Central and State governments are working in cohesion to bring forth the facilities and schemes related to start-ups to the attention of students in engineering institutions.

Various funding agencies like All India Council for Technical Education (AICTE), Department of Science and Technology (DST), University Grants Commission (UGC), The Ministry of Electronics and Information Technology (MeitY) are in forefront in actively promoting the start-up culture by bringing in various policies applicable to all the institutions at the national level.

Role of engineering colleges

At present, entrepreneurship activities are missing in most of the institutions. Most of the colleges have a start-up centre just because some government agency has mandated them to open it. It requires genuine effort to bring the culture of start-up entrepreneurship into the
campus so that students see it as a necessity and not as an optional activity.

The institutions should collaborate with other institutions to create a cluster of start-up centres which will allow institutions to share the expertise mutually. They should identify students with entrepreneurial potential and provide facilities in their campus to move from ideation stage to product building. It should have Memorandum of Understandings (MoUs) with angel investors, venture capitalists and other investment platforms that provide a window for investment.

It should provide the initial seed money for students to incubate their ideas. Engineering institutions can also claim a stake in the start-up companies that were incubated in their campus. Successful start-ups may act as a source of revenue generation for institutions. start-ups need to protect their ideas and
institutions should arrange for Patent filing and copyrights protection.

Role of teachers

A Teacher’s words are enough to make or break a student’s quest to accomplish greatness for
himself. The institution head should identify a set of teachers willing to put effort in mentoring the students for start-up activities. Teachers should organize workshops, webinars related to start-up culture, legal and intellectual issues to make them familiar with the start-up processes and instil confidence in them to pursue their activities.

Role of Students

Student entrepreneurs should think big and try to solve real issues that affect the lives of people. The students need to keep their ears to ground while pursuing their ideas. Rather than coming up with an idea blindly, they should talk to people to understand the ground-level issues afflicting them.

A product which doesn’t have a suitable market is difficult to sustain
in the long run. There is a need to understand the target market for their product.

Role of parents should not be overlooked. Families in India are close knit and parents prefer their ward to get a job in well-established companies.

This mindset needs to be reformed. Students should develop business acumen abilities to pitch in their product ideas to others and communication skills will go a long way in successfully ramping up their start-up efforts.
(The writer is a Professor at Dr. Ambedkar Institute of Technology, Bengaluru.)