Higher education institutes in the North Eastern Region (NER) will soon be equipped with Entrepreneurship Development Centres (EDC) as well as Incubation Centres to be set up by the Indian Institute of Entrepreneurship (IIE) with support from the North Eastern Council. The move aims to boost and create an entrepreneurial ecosystem among college students of NER.
“Youth has played a significant role in developing startup ecosystems in mature ecosystems like Karnataka and Gujarat. IIE plans to develop an ecosystem of NER through college youth. IIE shall reach out to young college students by developing Entrepreneurship Development Centers and Incubation Centers within the higher educational institutions of NER,” Lalit Sharma, director, IIE, said.
In comparison to other states, the numbers of student startups coming from NER are considerably low, the IIE director said. He added that there is a need to build the capabilities of higher educational institutions to develop student entrepreneurship. “Through EDCs, IIE shall work on enhancing the entrepreneurial intent of students and provide them with all necessary support including expanding upon their ideas, developing prototypes, conducting market research, developing their business plans, pitching for their startups and providing mentoring support to students,” he said.
The proposed Entrepreneurship Development Centers in colleges shall perform all these tasks and Incubation Centers shall further support them by providing the necessary technological support, market linkages, financial linkages, handholding support, grant support and professional networking support for the development of commercially viable and sustainable student startups, he added. In the first phase IIE, with the support of the North Eastern Council, will set up 30 Entrepreneurship Development Centres and four Incubation Centres in higher educational institutes across the North Eastern Region.
“IIE further plans to increase the number of EDCs as well as Incubation Centres and cover colleges in the remotest areas of NER so that the students from remote areas may also be a part of the startup revolution in the country and contribute towards economic development of NER,” he added.
As per the plan, the IIE will work closely with higher education institutions to establish these centers that will provide students with the necessary resources, guidance, and mentorship to launch their own startups. Under this project, 50 selected student startups will be supported financially through one-time grant funding of Rs five lakh each to start their business.
As per the data of the Ministry of Commerce and Industry, as on March 2023, there were a total of 1,143 registered startups throughout the eight states of the Northeast. Whereas during the same time period, there were 10,808 startups in Karnataka and 6,988 startups in Gujarat.
With inputs from ANI