Gujarat became first state to create student start-up & innovation policy

Provision of Rs. 200 crores will be made as State Innovation Fund for next 5 years

Gandhinagar:  “For the first time in India, Government of Gujarat today announced Student start-up and innovation policy. For this provision of Rs.200 crores will be done as State Innovation Fund during next five years. Out of which Rs.100 crores will be allocated by the State Government and the remaining amount will be created by internal sources.” This was announced by Shri Vijaybhai Rupani, Hon’ble Chief Minister of the state.

Policy document was released by Hon’ble CM at Mahatma Mandir, Gandhinagar. Around 14 lakh student of 60 universities across the state will get benefits from the new policy. “Over the last couple of years, the education department has taken several efforts to support young startups, innovations and entrepreneurs. During this time, I have personally interacted with many young entrepreneurs and innovators to understand the challenges they face. The Student Startup and Innovation Policy will create a conducive environment enabling 1% of our graduates to become job creators, and it provisions Rs. 200 crore Student Innovation Fund to develop an innovation and preincubation ecosystem across the state,” said Bhupendrasinh Chudasama, Minister of Education. On this occasion Shri Jaydrathsinh Parmar, honb’le Minister of state for Technical Education, Shri Atmaram Parmar, honb’le Minister of Social Justiuce, Shri K. Kailashnathan, honb’le Additional Chief Secretary, Shri K. Shrinivasan, Additional Secretary (Revenue), Shri Sunil Shukla, Director EDI, Dr. M.N. Patel, Vice Chancellor of Gujarat University were also present.

“Gujarat’s is first amongst the states to create a Student Startup and Innovation Policy which will create a much needed Innovation and Preincubation Ecosystem Support for Students (IPIES). The policy will provide a feed of students ideas and innovations to the existing startup support policies of the state. The policy will develop an innovation and entrepreneurial culture in the state’s universities and educational machineries and thereby create more young innovators, entrepreneurs and eventually, job creators,” said Anju Sharma, Principal Secretary (Higher & Technical Education), Government of Gujarat.

This policy shall be very supportive for deserving students pursuing their studies in various higher educational courses in different institutions and universities for evaluation of their innovative ideas, to speed up useful research projects related to industry, society and community and increase in registration of startups and patent filing and also provide platform for state level competition of such projects. This policy is formed by Government of Gujarat with a view to support developmental oriented skills of the youth. This policy will support entrepreneurs for their research activities related to innovative ideas and also commercialization of such research projects, Prof. (Dr) Navin Sheth, Vice Chancellor of GTU said.

“Over the last couple of years, inspired by Hon’ble Prime Minister’s call for “Startup India”, the education department of Government of Gujarat has undertaken several initiatives to support young entrepreneurs, innovators and start-ups through the educational machinery of the State through universities and educational institutes. During this period, Hon’ble Minister of Education, Shri Bhupendrasinh Chudasama, personally attended several key meetings to chair various levels of discussions on student start-ups, entrepreneurship and innovation including a meeting of Vice-Chancellors of all universities of the State on 21st August, 2015, at Gujarat University to discuss role of universities in supporting and nurturing young entrepreneurs. After several high-level meetings and deliberations, in September, 2016, a formal Student Start-up Framework Committee under the chairmanship of Principal Secretary (H&TE) was formed to develop such a policy or framework for supporting young innovations / start-ups via state’s education machinery.  The draft was given its final shape by the Committee in December, 2016,” Shri Hiranmay Mahanta, Honorary Director, GTU Innovation Council said.

To finalize this Policy, Smt. Anju Sharma, Principal Secretary (H&TE), Dr. M.N. Patel, Vice Chancellor, Gujarat University, Dr. Rajul Gajjar, then I/c Vice Chancellor, Gujarat Technological University, Shri Shailesh Patwari, Senior Vice President, GCCI, Shri Bhagyesh Soneji, Chairperson, ASSOCHAM, Gujarat, Dr. V.S. Purani, Joint Director of Technical Education, Shri Hiranmay Mahanta, Honorary Director, GTU Innovation Council, Shri Rahul Bhagchandani, Chairman, Youth Connect Foundation and Shri Harish Prajapati, Deputy Secretary (H&TE) have made tremendous efforts. The policy would not have materialised without the vision, leadership and continuous patronage of the Hon’ble Chief Minister Shri Vijayabhai Rupani, Hon’ble Deputy Chief Minister Shri Nitinbhai Patel and Hon’ble Minister of Education Shri Bhupendrasinh Chudasama.

Objective

1. Innovation Culture Building:
   

2. Qualitative Improvement in the conventional education system.

3. To create conducive environment to inculcate creative thinking and problem solving attitude amongst students.

4. Pre-incubation support
   

5. To convert ideas of students from Proof of Concept (PoC) upto Minimum Viable Prototype (MVP).

6. To create support system for Patent filing.

Goals

1. To create environment for creative and innovative thinking.

2. To convert at least 1% graduates into job creators.

3. Harness 500 student start-ups in the next 5 years.

4. To file at least 1000 patents from universities in the state every year.

5. To Support at least 1000 student-led innovations per year.

6. To build capacity for at least 200 educational institutes in the state in the next five years to have a robust pre-incubation support.

Major Activities

1. To promote Innovation and Pre-Incubation awareness amongst students of Higher education.

2. To encourage the students to undertake innovative projects related to Society, Industries and community instead of conventional academic projects.

3. To facilitate guidance and evaluation of the projects by the experts at institute level and also provide platform for commercialisation of such projects.

4. To award and provide support for approval and publication of the research work.

5. To develop high-tech facilities like Fab Lab., Common Working Space, Design labs., etc. at higher educational institutions.

6. To provide technology platform through academic programmes, seminars, workshop/Massive Open Online Course (MOOC).

7. To develop State Level Common Resource Centre and Digital Platform.