AICTE Counts On Support From Bihar To Work On Student Startup Policy In State Run Universities

More than a year after AICTE (All India Council for Technical Education) launched national student startup policy, the organisation has now got the support from Bihar to enhance student startup movement in state-run universities and higher educational institutions.

Taking continuous efforts to put student startup policy in action, the AICTE startup policy implementation unit has been making concentrated efforts towards policy and program convergences and ecosystem streamlining in association with various leading national and international ecosystem enablers at multiple levels.

The continuous efforts bore fruit with positive responses from states like Bihar, Gujarat, Madhya Pradesh, Sikkim, Jammu and Kashmir etc.

To take the first step, Prof. Anil Sahasrabudhe, Chairman, AICTE and his policy implementation team met Satya Pal Malik, Governor of Bihar and discussed about the efforts to kickstart the student startup policy actions in the state of Bihar especially in higher educational institutes and universities with full support from State and AICTE.

AICTE has also offered to provide technical and handhold support to the State and universities to come up with policy provision and framework for the promotion of student innovation and student start-ups in the state of Bihar.

What Is National Student Startup Policy?

In November 2016, AICTE launched the national student startup policy which aims to create 100K students owned tech-based startups and a million employment opportunities by 2025. The policy also aims to guide AICTE approved institutions to implement government’s Startup India initiative.

The Indian government has also made a provision in the National startup policy to set up a fund with an initial corpus of $384 Mn (INR 2,500 Cr) and a total corpus of $1.5 Bn (INR 10K Cr) over the period of four years. “The Fund will be about the nature of start-up for the funds, which means that it will not invest directly into the start-ups, but shall participate in the capital of Sebi registered venture funds. AICTE can facilitate its institutions to connect, network and use funds which apparently support campus startups,” added the media report.

During an event AICTE chairman Prof Anil Sahasrabudhe had informed that AICTE had organised smart India hackathon in 2017 in which 45 government departments participated.

He also revealed that in 2018, a five-day hardware hackathon will be organised in which students will come up with prototypes of products.

Also, AICTE has developed Massive Open Online Courses (MOOCs) ‘Swayam’ with the support of Ministry of Human Resources and Development. “With this platform, courses will be available in any corner of the country any time and from the best faculty in India. More than 800 courses have been made available on Swayam platform,” Sahasrabudhe added.

As of now, only Gujarat has initiated a student startup policy with Gujarat University recently launching its Startup and Innovation policy. The Startup and Innovation policy envisions Gujarat University as a hub of global standards for creating, nurturing and supporting innovative businesses across a variety of sectors. It creates several initiatives, reforms, and mandates which are divided into several platforms like infrastructural platform, academic platform, skill development platform etc.

With the association and partnership of AICTE and the Bihar government on the national student startup policy, the startup movement from Bihar is expected to receive a boost.