The start-up wave seems to have not impressed the young techies on city campuses.
Only seven students from the School of Engineering (SOE) and the Model Engineering College under Cochin University of Science and Technology started their companies over the last two years as per the official estimates.
Nobody belonging to the B. Tech batch (pass-out in June) at MEC opted out of the campus placement drive to pursue their entrepreneurial dreams last year. The situation was no different at SOE in 2013. Only three from MEC and four at SOE started their start-ups in 2013 and 2014.
“Most of our students are getting good offers from visiting companies and hence they would not like to take a risk by starting their own companies,” pointed out V.K. Jayasree, faculty member and placement officer at MEC.
Explaining that the number of students opting out of the campus placement was minimal, C.V. Premkumar, faculty-in-charge of the Training and Placement Cell at School of Engineering, said students were cautious as issues like raising capital for their venture still remain a major issue for campus entrepreneurs. “Students opting for campus placement also take a leaf out from the difficulties being experienced by their friends, who had launched start-ups and struggling to find ways to sustain their initiative,” he said.
Faculty members also referred to the parental pressure on engineering students to take up a job rather than starting a company. Many also fear that their ventures may lose out steam, if it fails to gain the attention of the government and angel investors, they said.
Asked whether the poor response to campus start-up schemes at SOE and MEC goes against the encouraging estimates by the Kochi Startup Village, Pranav Kumar Suresh, its Chief Executive Officer, said the trend was catching up when viewed from a State-wide angle.
“Even though we do not track college-wise number of campus start-ups, the State figure was about 150 last year. It’s a fact that a cultural shift has to emerge for promoting more campus-based start-ups,” he said.
Students are getting good offers from companies
Raising capital for start-ups still a major issue
