How do we encourage and empower budding entrepreneurs?

India is on its way to becoming one of the world's fastest-growing startup centres. But unlike in the United States, universities in India are not at the heart of the entrepreneurial movement.

To help aspiring entrepreneurs successfully incubate high-impact ventures, educational institutions must foster an entrepreneurial spirit in which students are actively encouraged to experiment with unique ideas and are not scared to fail.

Students must be challenged and rewarded for taking strategic risks in their pursuit of innovation. Institutions should create gateways to help people discover new solutions and experiment with them.

Incubation centres

One way to foster innovation is for institutes to set incubation centres or Centres for Innovation. Some universities already have entrepreneurial programmes in place, but they have to make sure they are tailored to the needs of students.

India needs to develop global Centres of Excellence (GCoEs) in exponential and Industry 4.0 technologies, in collaboration with academics and industry worldwide. These centres should assist entrepreneurs in assessing and adopting cutting-edge technologies and generate prototypes and patented solutions.

Mentoring

Budding entrepreneurs must also receive regular mentorship from leaders of various startups, firms, technology areas, sectors, and regions. They should also have the chance to shadow successful entrepreneurs and founders of high-impact firms. Leading business experts from many sectors provide a holistic perspective on establishing a business model and overcoming the hurdles of developing and marketing innovative goods.

Education programs

Educational institutions can also conduct internal startup hackathons to take the student entrepreneurship programme to the next level. Students must create teams, identify an issue to address, find suitable solutions that may be turned into a viable business endeavor, and submit their proposal to a specially selected jury during the hackathon.

The colleges should make sure that students who join such entrepreneurship programmes are serious about it and attend activities regularly. These hours may be applied to a class module. A well-planned entrepreneurship program selection procedure should be implemented to recruit the right individuals and guarantee that allocated school resources are used effectively.

Global immersion

Aspiring entrepreneurs and innovators want access to global and local immersions to gain deeper insights, new views, and international connections to produce innovative goods and solutions for India and the rest of the globe. These immersions will provide hands-on experience with the entrepreneurial environment and an inspiration for connecting ideas that will result in revolutionary and groundbreaking goods and solutions. It also allows for collaboration and partnership with individuals, institutions, and the formation of global teams.

India's ability to make rapid development in this decade is based on creating an ecosystem that encourages high-impact entrepreneurship. Doing this requires an entrepreneurial-focused education system that provides entrepreneurs access to high technology laboratories and experts to accelerate product and venture development.