The President of India, Shri Pranab Mukherjee launched the National Student Startup Policy at the second Visitor’s Conference on November 16, 2016 at Rashtrapati Bhavan New Delhi.
- The three days conference, starting from November 16 and ending November 18, was attended by Shri Prakash Javadekar, Union Minister for Human Resource Development, Shri Ashok Gajapathi Raju Pusapati, Union Minister of Civil Aviation, Dr. Mahendra Nath Pandey, Minister of State for Human Resource Development, Secretary to the President, Smt. Omita Paul and Prof. Anil D. Sahasrabudhe, Chairman, AICTE.
The National Student Startup Policy
Formulated by AICTE, the National Student Startup Policy, aims at creating 100,000 technology based student start-ups and a million employment opportunities in the next 10 years.
- For achieving this mission, plans are being made on developing an ideal entrepreneurial ecosystem and promoting strong inter-institutional partnerships among technical institutions.
- The policy will enable the Indian youth to contribute to the nation’s socio-economic progress through promotion of technology-driven student start-ups.
- With an exposure to an entrepreneurship climate, the policy will impart crucial soft skills like decision-making in the students.
About the Conference
This is the second time such a conference has been organized thus, bringing together all the heads of higher education institutions including Vice Chancellors of Central Universities, Directors of NITs, IITs, IISERs and IISC under a single forum.Earlier, separate conferences were held for the different heads of different universities.
The agenda fixed for the Visitor’s Conference for discussion includes:
i.Creating world-class higher educational institutions.
ii.Creating global alliance of institutes for research, innovation and technology development.
iii.Making India a preferred destination for higher learning.
iv.Technology-induced models of teaching and
v. Funding options for higher education.
Eminent persons like Shri K.V. Kamath, President, New Development Bank; Smt. Ela Ramesh Bhatt, Founder, SEWA; Prof. Ramachandra Guha, Historian; Shri N.R. Narayana Murthy, Founder, Infosys also addressed the participants.
- An Industry-Academia session was also conducted in the Conference where eminent personalities from Industry and Academy participated.
- About 68 MOUs were exchanged between 32 Central Institutions and 65 industry organizations.
- On the second and third day of the Conference, there will be panel discussions and group work on agenda items of the Conference as well as a presentation on converting Rashtrapati Bhavan into a smart township and extending the experience to select villages through Smart Model Gram project.
- President Mukherjee is Visitor of 126 central institutes of higher learning. The Conferences at Rashtrapati Bhavan have provided an opportunity to heads of central institutions to share their views in this conference about the important issues that affect the higher education sector in India.
- With such conferences, recommendations and action points emerge that are pursued by the administrative ministries, regulatory bodies, the institutions of higher learning and others concerned. This results in significant improvements in the progress of the institutions and in the higher education system of our country.