The Hindustan Institute of Technology and Science, along with The Hindu Group, is hosting a five-part webinar series on career guidance for students of Classes 10, 11 and 12 this month. The first session was held on ‘Engineering Innovation, Product Development and Start-ups’.
Yajulu Medury, Vice-Chancellor, Mahindra University, Hyderabad, laid emphasis on the need to establish the right ecosystem to nudge students towards innovation and entrepreneurship, which traditional engineering education has failed to do. “We need an ecosystem where students can engage with corporates, start-ups, industry experts, partners, investors, accelerators, etc. Without this, the incubation and entrepreneurship innovation model will collapse,” he said, drawing on the examples of Stanford University and IIT-Madras where entrepreneurship and technical education go hand-in-hand.
Product development
S.N. Sridhara, Vice-Chancellor, Hindustan Institute of Technology, elaborated on the process of product development from idea generation, testing, user feedback, and IPR protection to production and marketing. He noted that it was equally important for aspiring entrepreneurs to be aware of the various platforms for incubation, the business components, and financial and legal aspects. “Students can start by undertaking professional courses, participating in hackathons, ideating, building teams and getting help from Technology Business Incubators.”
Bringing in the practitioner’s perspective, Rajneesh Mittal, Head of Technology and Content, UNext Learning, spoke of the Industry 4.0. ecosystem and Indian start-ups thriving in it by enabling specific technological changes in the existing systems. He also explained the difference between education and learning: Education is extrinsic, passive and curriculum-led. Learning is intrinsic, active and curiosity-led. “While a well-defined curriculum paves the way for greater learning outcome; when the two facets of education and learning work together, it can lead to solving some of the world’s greatest problems.”
The session, moderated by R. Sujatha, Deputy Editor (Reporting), The Hindu , concluded with speakers taking questions from the audience. View it at http://bit.ly/HITSTHYT1
