Bridge academics-industry gap, says Sachin Pilot

Union Minister of State for IT and Communication Sachin Pilot on Friday said that the schism between academics and industry should be bridged and viable technological innovations should reach the market.

Legal and commercial aspects are as important as the technical aspects and should be introduced during the engineering courses, he said after visiting the Startup Village here. 

The project is the nation’s first telecom business incubator on the public-private participation (PPP) mode. The National Science and Technology Entrepreneurship Development Board, the Department of Science and Technology of the Government of India, Technopark and MobME Wireless (private partner) have joined hands to set up the Startup Village at the Kinfra Park here. 

“If the states are to come forward in supporting and facilitating business incubators on the PPP mode, the concept can be scaled-up to the national level. The growth of business incubators will be increased from the existing 65 to 1,000. Indians are enterprising and it won’t be long before we create models like the Yahoo or Google,” he said.

After inspecting the two incubators, Mindhelix and Wowmakers, and the Blackberry space innovation approach of break and build, the Minister said that the technological inputs should be accessible to more students across the nation.

“The rigid university structure should pave the way for a free atmosphere where the student product innovations are unhindered,” he said.

“The telecom industry in the country has shown an incredible growth. Instead of spending 20 hours a day in an MNC, ideas for product innovations can be hatched at the incubators where initial monetary support and infrastructure are available,” the Minister added.

Hibi Eden MLA, Startup Village CEO Sijo Kuruvilla, Sanjay Vijayakumar, chairman of the board of governors, and other entrepreneurs were present. The Minister planted a tree in the fruit orchard as part of the visit. The village focuses on the development of student startups and aims to incubate more such companies.