MoE’s Innovation Cell (MIC) has conducted a leadership talk (Second MIC Driven Activity of Quarters 3 and 4) with Dr. Anand Deshpande, the founder Chairman and Managing Director of Persistent Systems, where the postgraduate students and research scholars of IIT Kharagpur have participated enthusiastically with effective learning outcome. The discussion has been on the topic “From Ph.D. / Master’s Thesis to a Start- Up”, where Dr. Anand Deshpande has laid emphasis on promoting innovation and entrepreneurial concepts in students.
“Nearly about 1 million students graduate every year. Among them, 6% are into Masters and among these 6% students, few venture into Research. A very few students have that huge passion for research and converting their research problem into an entrepreneurial venture”, said Prof Anil D Sahasrabudhe, Professor of Mechanical Department at IIT Guwahati, also the present Chairman of AICTE.
This session has been conducted mainly to motivate, encourage, inspire and nurture the students who have come out of Masters and Ph.D. program, make them to think about the entrepreneurship as well as to support them to work on new ideas & innovations and promote them to create startup.
“Ph.D. training is the best for being an entrepreneur. All of you should become job creators rather than job seekers”, said Dr. Deshpande. “To become an entrepreneur, you need to think about three things: build an idea and validate it, team building and how to manage cash”.
It is true to quite an extent that students join academia (as University Professor or R&D Lab Professionals) after their Master’s and Ph.D. degree. In this regard, Dr Anand Deshpande’s inspirational lecture has made an impact on the listeners enabling them to consider entrepreneurship as their alternative career option.
The Ph.D. graduates have demonstrated their innovation skills, could go deep to analyze and solve complex problems as well as could tackle all situations with calmness. They have gained all the necessary skills and the same traits are required to become entrepreneur. A startup is a storehouse of innovation, creativity and imagination. So, the students could easily convert their research problems into an entrepreneurial venture, where they could use their knowledge based skills to design new products.
The participants from our institute have said, “In India, research scholars keep worrying about their future opportunities. In this regard, this talk has been unique in its own way to give ideas for future scope to research scholars. Overall, it has been a wonderful, mind-blowing, interactive and informative session at YouTube Channel of MIC. We have got a noble opportunity to gain vast amount of knowledge and to learn a lot from Dr. Deshpande’s effective experience and his guidance. We aspire for becoming AATMANIRBHAR by transfiguring our research work into a startup and also refrain ourselves for traversing foreign soil for further reserach”.
According to our students, this talk has given them a new perspective about research. This session has rightly motivated them to think and work with a positive mindset to design the workflow in a beneficial way and help to add on to the line of innovation.
(Inputs from Rituparna Chakraborty, Branding Executive)
Contact: Paramita Dey, Junior Assistant
Email: media@iitkgp.ac.in, Ph. No.: +91-3222-282004