By Gopal Goswami,
Gujarat has always been a torchbearer in every field, whether it be industry, trade, export, culture, or anything else. What Gujarat has not pioneered post-independence is the education sector. However, in the last two decades, Gujarat has produced some world-class educational and research institutes. Gujarat has long been known as a business and entrepreneurship-friendly state.
The world’s top 20 business list includes two Gujarati names, The Ambani and Adani, however TATA is also a Gujarat organisation. Gujarat has created a one-of-a-kind policy, the Student Start-up and Innovation Policy (SSIP 2.0), to encourage entrepreneurship and prevent brain drain. The start-up culture in India is a developing phenomenon that is receiving widespread attention as a driver of growth and employability. Start-ups have the capacity to offer meaningful solutions and hence operate as drivers of socioeconomic growth, thereby improving human lives through innovations and scalable technology.
However, in order to instill a Start-up culture and a suitable climate for economic growth, it is critical to promote and foster an innovation mindset across the country, penetrating all strata of society. In reality, India has acknowledged the need for innovation and reformation from its inception.
Taking a que from National education Policy 2019, Government of Gujarat has come up with a unique idea of Student Start-up and Innovation Policy (SSIP 2.0) to harness the creative potential of youth across academia through innovation and entrepreneurship. The main objective of these initiatives is to cultivate and promote innovation mindset and entrepreneurial culture across the State. Gujarat has been receiving specific recognition in the innovation and Start-up sector, while becoming one of the pioneers in the country.
The Student Start-up and Innovation Policy 2.0 (SSIP 2.0) intends to support innovations and start-ups in traditional and new age technologies, as well as in emerging areas. Innovations in clean and green energy, climate change, and other areas that contribute to India’s commitment of net zero emissions by 2070 will be supported. Semiconductors, robots, electric cars, waste management, artificial intelligence, machine learning, the Internet of Things, and Blockchain will all be prioritised. The Policy, on the other hand, seeks to foster sector-agnostic innovations and start-ups.
The Policy creates progressive links between innovation, execution, business development, and market penetration. The Policy will provide a support system that will guide students through each stage of their entrepreneurial journey. The Policy promotes horizontal inclusion of all academic streams as well as vertical extension in Schools, Institutes, and Universities.
Empowering Gujarat’s young people to realise their creative potential via start-ups and innovation, allowing them to contribute to long-term development and inclusive progress toward the fulfilment of Aatmanirbhar Gujarat. Its objective is to build a student-centered innovation and incubation environment throughout academia.
Following are the highlights of the policy: –
• Establish an Innovation and Start-up Ecosystem at all levels of education: Schools, Institutes and Universities. • Develop functional incubators at all universities in the State.
• Scout and nurture innovation and Start-up across academia and enable them for maximum value creation for the industry, society and the State at large.
• Build internal capacity of educational institutions and strengthen mentoring processes.
• Promote Intellectual Property related awareness programmes and develop mechanisms for filing and approvals of IP.
• Set up a common robust digital platform that would allow seamless support to stakeholders.
• Develop an integrated mechanism of performance analysis by fixing predetermined Key Performance Indicators (KPIs).
• Encourage students, innovators and Start-ups in sunrise sectors, traditional and disruptive technologies.
• Formulate and implement various interventions and mandates based on learnings from best practices and past efforts to facilitate the journey of Mind-to-market.
• Nurture the evolution of Gujarat Start-up ecosystem across its various phases like emergence, activation, integration and maturity. Student Start-up and Innovation Policy.
With following Goals and Objectives: –
1) Outreach and sensitize 5 million students for innovation and entrepreneurship, covering at least 1000 Higher Educational Institutions (HEIs) and 10,000 Schools of the State.
2) Support for 10,000 student-led Proof-of-Concepts (PoCs/Prototype).
3) Assistance to 5000 IP filings.
4) Build capacity for at least 500 educational institutions and universities in the State, to have a robust preincubation support system for beneficiaries.
5) Nurture 1000 school student-led innovations. 6) Groom 1500 student Start-ups and upscale existing Start-ups.
7) Incubate 500 Start-ups (physical and virtual).
8) Support to 500 Start-ups under Start-up Srujan Seed Support (Up to INR 10 Lac).
With following Strategy: –
• Developing an ecosystem that would endow students to convert challenges into potential opportunities while utilizing State’s demographic dividends.
• Involving all levels of eligible beneficiaries from school, higher and technical education.
• Enabling the educational institutes to actively engage students, faculty members, and staff members in innovation and entrepreneurship related activities.
• Providing end-to-end support mechanisms in all activities related to innovation such as pre-incubation, mentoring, knowledge resource pool, cohort support, industry expertise, procurement, and IPRs.
• Creating an ecosystem for Collaboration, Co-creation, Knowledge Exchange, Social Innovation and Industry Relations.
• Encouraging grantees for collaborations through networking and infrastructure sharing for greater engagement. Student Start-up and Innovation Policy (SSIP 2.0)
• Establishing Hub and Spoke Innovation and Start-up ecosystem development for wider outreach and sustainable impact.
• Motivating innovators and Start-ups supported through the Policy to contribute towards sustainable development goals and long-term inclusive development of the State.
• Implementing an incentive-based system for innovation and Start-up for Grantees and Beneficiaries.
The period of the Policy will be from January 11, 2022 to March 31, 2027.
Eligibility Criteria for Educational Institutions To be eligible to take benefit of the Policy, a university, Institution, School shall be
based in Gujarat;
a Public University/Private University (as per the Gujarat Private University Act, 2009 and as amended from time to time); Public or Private Institution affiliated to University, Public or Private School.
on record to have demonstrated concrete efforts related to innovation and entrepreneurship in the past few years or having strong commitment to participate towards the goals of the Policy.
The Policy Implementation Committee shall evaluate each application based on the criteria/merit and the suitable ones shall be selected as Student Start-up and Innovation Policy grantee under the Policy. The criteria/merit shall include parameters like active student participation, research and innovation related activities carried out in past few years, action plan and budget plan and other as decided by the Committee.
Eligibility Criteria for Individual Beneficiaries Any person up to the age of 35 years, who is,
• A school student of Foundational / Preparatory / Middle / Secondary level (Up to Class 12)
• A Diploma / Vocational / Undergraduate / Postgraduate / Doctoral student or an alumna / alumnus
• Any dropout from school / institute / university
The innovation of the beneficiary should contribute towards either development or improvement of any product or process or service in existing or new fields; or should be a scalable business model with a potential to generate employment or wealth creation.
Financial Support Structure
The SSIP 2.0 provisions for creation of a Student Innovation Fund and Grantee Matching Fund of Rs. 500 Crore for the period of the Policy. Rs. 300 Crore shall be provisioned through state budget for the Policy period, whereas the remainder of Rs. 200 Crore shall be mobilized via existing resources such as internal budgets of Universities/Institutes, private and CSR funds etc. The yearly outlay of Rs 60 Crore would be received by the Gujarat Knowledge Society under the Directorate of Technical Education. This fund will be disbursed amongst the Grantees/PMUs/Beneficiaries as per the provisions of the Policy. 70 % of the fund allocated through the budgetary provisions of the Policy be utilized for PoCs/Prototypes and IP support. Remaining 30% of the fund may be utilized for programmes, pedagogical interventions, events, special Student Start-up and Innovation Policy endeavours, setting up pre-incubation/incubation centres, basic infrastructure, and others.
The legislation was implemented at a time when the state is still reeling from the effects of the Covid-19 outbreak. The need of the time is, employers not employees, must be produced by the country and state. Small ideas that receive timely backing can grow into conglomerates. This programme has extended to students from elementary school through university; nonetheless, a significant portion of the population continues to drop out of school, and such individuals are also accommodated by this policy. This effort can provide the industrial state with the needed incentive to continue its economic trajectory.
(The author is Research Scholar, NIT Surat. Views expressed are personal and do not reflect the official position or policy of the Financial Express Online.)
