Role of IIT Bombay in Entrepreneurship in India
Since long, the developing countries in transition, like India have undertaken a process of transformation of their political, economic and social systems towards a market economy. The core of this process is the creation of the private sector, the development of entrepreneurship and creation of small and medium-sized enterprises. In this process emphasis should be laid on creation of an enabling environment in which the transformation of the society towards a market economy can take place.
Most developing countries recognize today that in a competitive world, conventional strategy of nurturing a small scale sector by reserving certain products exclusively for that sector they do not work very well. Instead of only product segmentation, the forces of globalization imply that technological competitiveness be the criteria for survival and growth in market place. It is well known that the employment provided by the small scale sector is much larger in almost any economy than large sector. And yet, the policy and institutional sectors don’t encourage either the indigenous innovations or licensing by the small scale sector of these innovations. It is to overcome these constraints that the concept of business incubation should come into picture.
Inventions and innovations are the cornerstones of successful competitive products and business reforms. Very few ideas are ready from the start; inventions must be developed into marketable products. During their early life, inventions must be taken care of, just like plant seedlings, to allow them to grow and develop, particularly in the ideation and development phase. The development phase requires plenty of creative effort, know-how and financial resources, for which outside expertise is usually needed. First assistance in developing an idea into a product for business can be received from Incubators.
In the developed west, governments had realized and passed bills to increase the role of universities in new business development to help strengthen local economies. When colleges and universities use business incubation as a strategy to achieve academic, research and community service missions, academia, entrepreneurs and society all benefit. Universities like Harvard, MIT, Stanford, etc. in U.S.A understood that it is their civic duty to be an ally in this effort to promote enterprises based on technologies developed by them, to make U.S.A. a world leader. In India, the only parallels to such universities of west are IITs, which were built by Pandit Nehru with big dreams for future of India.
Honouring Pandit Nehru’s words for IITs, “… Here stands this finest monument of India today representing India’s urges, India’s future in the making. This picture seems to me symbolic of the changes that are coming…”. The plan to establish IITs was based on the feeling that industrial development in post-independence India could not be fostered unless high-level technical personnel in a variety of fields could be trained in these new Indian institutions with adequate facilities and nurturing environment which would be able to produce the kind of broad minded-engineers necessary for development of India.
Today IIT Bombay is a premier technology institution of higher learning with a record of excellence in teaching and significant contributions to nation’s progress in science and technology development. It is strategically located in Mumbai and is also well connected to various institutions all over the world. Leading industries in the world including many Fortune 500 companies approach the institute for sourcing its faculty expertise and for funding projects to develop cutting-edge technology. IIT Bombay is also actively involved in R&D cooperation with many Indian companies covering sponsorship of student research through fellowships, funded short and medium term projects and joint research for technology development and multi-party technology development missions.
Demographic analysis of India shows that, while aspirations of people here are rising and the general educational level is going up, there is not corresponding industrial growth and creation of job opportunities resulting in high unemployment especially at the entry level. This makes it mandatory to accord highest priority to job creation in the prevailing situation. IIT Bombay believes that innovative minds should rather become job creators than crowding the already saturated job markets. To foster and promote the spirit of entrepreneurship and innovation at IIT Bombay in all possible ways and at all levels, an independent society, “Society for Innovation & Entrepreneurship” (SINE), hosted by IIT Bombay and located inside the campus, is being set-up. So that students, faculty and alumni of IIT Bombay get actively involved in innovative and entrepreneurial efforts. This society will play a key role in creating an environment for channeling these efforts for the initiation, incubation and growth of high-technology enterprises in India. This society aims to take a leadership role in this arena in India by setting up a successful model for this kind of efforts to be replicated then in other Indian universities and institutes.
Why incubate?Incubators assist inventors, innovators and entrepreneurs in many other ways also than just providing the basic infrastructure and facilities required by start-up companies, in developing the inventions from idea to a marketable product. These other ways are, like following:
Incubators link Innovation, Investment and Enterprise and the incubator 'graduates' create jobs, revitalize neighborhoods, commercialize new technologies and strengthen local and national economy. Incubation saves foreign exchange by encouraging indigenous products and prevents Brain drain. It encourages faster growth and greater survival rates of new companies, helps to identify investment opportunities, and facilitates the commercialization of university or corporate research and new ideas.
As Pandit Nehru had described IITs as India’s future in making and the picture symbolic of the changes coming to take place, IITs are the best grounds where this new era of entrepreneurship from academia can commence in India. With the successful experience of KReSIT-IT Business Incubator, IIT Bombay has proven that if in India incubation & entrepreneurship has to happen in academia then it has to sprout from IIT Bombay.
Written by: Lokendra Chauhan