Anyone's script

INNOVATION: Entrepreneurship is no longer the prerogative of IIMs, IITs.

Faculties from 41 colleges all over India participated in the recently-held National Entrepreneurship Network-Stanford's Technology Ventures Program, (NEN-STVP) programme to learn nuances of entrepreneurship education, giving a clear indication that institutes across India are encouraging their students to script their own business bibles.

And it's not only management and technology institutes that are taking the initiative but private engineering colleges, institutes of hotel management, health research management, biotechnology and law too are jumping on the bandwagon.

For instance, the Institute of Health Management and Research (IHMR), Bangalore, joined NEN four months ago and has formed an entrepreneurship cell (yet to be named) in its college.

Says professor Gururaj Urs, IHMR, "We train senior and top level executives in health and hospital management and by getting in to entrepreneurship education we want to educate them in entrepreneurship too, since the sector needs such people. The students are so excited about this venture that they have designed a logo, framed a punchline for the cell and formed an e-cell society already." The college plans to recruit more people who can teach entrepreneurship education.

Another institute which aims to give a fillip to entrepreneurial activities is Anjuman-I-Islam's College of Hotel Management, Mumbai.

Says Sabina Ahmed Ghazali who will soon start an entrepreneurship cell at the college, "Students from engineering and management institutes do not generally know which field can provide an entrepreneurship opportunity to them. Though they possess all the qualities of becoming a successful entrepreneur, they many-a-time fail to recognise a lucrative opportunity. We plan to train them on how to capitalise on such opportunities, like, the booming tourism industry and the service sector."

"I have never seen an institute other than techonology and management which has taken a keen interest in entrepreneurship education. Now we have decided to spread the word to hotel management colleges in Mumbai," continues Ghazali.

At the Institute of Bio informatics and Applied Biotechnology (IBAB), Bangalore, two of its students have already started their own enterprises in biotech and one student has started a biotech consultancy in London.

Asserts Gayatri Saberwal chief coordinator, IBAB, "Silicon Valley owes its existence to the entrepreneurial nature of the people working there. Entrepreneurship will not flourish till we have a conducive environment for it. An entrepreneurship program in the field of science helps students float their own ventures and provides them with much needed information on the business front."

STVP , a 10 -year-old, globally recognised leader in teaching entrepreneurship, has partnered with NEN to provide a one-year entrepreneurship educators course to Indian teachers.

Among the management institutes, the Xavier's Institute of Management, Bhubaneshwar (XIM-B), has revived its e-cell after 15 years in 2003. Says Rajeev Roy of XIM-B, "The response is overwhelming. Ten per cent of XIM-B's graduates start their own ventures in three-years of graduating."

Says Prof. Suresh Rao of SP Jain, "Entrepreneurship in different fields is an innovation being done in India unlike the US where entrepreneurship is only hi-tech based."