Ajay Shashi Kiran 21

Higher Education and Knowledge Transfer: Key to Entrepreneurial Development

International Conference on Information Security and Management(ICMIS2010)- IIIT-Allahabad

(January 21st - 24th 2010)

Dr. Ajay Singh(MIET, Meerut)

Dr. Shashi Singh (MIET, Meerut)

Dr. Kiran Singh(University of Allahabad)

Entrepreneurship: Concepts & Definitions

“Entrepreneurship is the process of creating something new with value by devoting the necessary time and effort, assuming the accompanying financial, psychic, and social risks, and receiving the resulting rewards of monetary and personal satisfaction of independence.”… Robert Hisrich

Entrepreneurship: Concepts & Definitions

“Entrepreneurship is an act of initiative, drive, commitment, diligence, perseverance, organized effort, and achievement outlook, to undertake some specific functions of performing productive activities and the capacity to bear and associated with the investment”.

Economic Policy Paper on Entrepreneurship Development through Educational Reform-Bangladesh

Entrepreneurship: Concepts & Definitions (The Revised GEM Model)

Basic Requirements:

Institutions Infrastructure

Economic StabilityHealth & Primary Education

Efficiency Enhancer:

Higher Education & Training

Goods & Labour Market EfficiencyFinancial Market

Innovation & Entrepreneurship:

Entrepreneurial Finance

Entrepreneurship EducationR& D Transfer etc

Entrepreneurship

Attitudes:Perceived

OpportunityActivity:

Early StageAspiration:

Growth

National Economic Growth(Jobs &Technical Innovations)

Entrepreneurship: The Importance Central to the development of economy The micro and small enterprises (MSEs)

constitute over 90% of total enterprises in most of the economies.

Employment generation MSE sector accounts for about 39% of the

manufacturing output and around 33% of the total export of the India (in term of value).

Ministry of MSME-GOI

Entrepreneurship: The Importance ‘The nation that fosters an infrastructure of

linkages among and between firms, universities and government gains competitive advantage through quicker information diffusion and product deployment’..US Council on Competitiveness 1998

‘Leading knowledge based economy in the World’ (Lisbon Council) and key issue for the EU is to build a ‘climate in which entrepreneurial initiative and business activity can thrive’.. green paper on entrepreneurship- EC Commission-2003

Methodology and ObjectivesExploratory Research

Data Source: Secondary- From newspaper articles of the last 3 years

Objectives: To study Prerequisites of Entrepreneurship Entrepreneurial Initiatives in India Knowledge Transfer: Problems faced Approach to Higher Education and Knowledge

Transfer

Prerequisites of Entrepreneurship

Creative mind, Risk taking capacity and Need to achieve (Most important factors)

Support of infrastructural facilities and cultural acceptance & recognition

Entrepreneurial Initiatives in India Institutes of national importance that have been

setup through an act of parliament (IITs, IIMs, NITs, AIIMS, IISc etc.) are the main leaders in the field of knowledge transfer.

Examples:o Organizing Competitions like “Great

Idea”, helping and incubating ideas.o IIT Kharagpur: Nina Saxena Excellence

in Technical award (Yearly).

Entrepreneurial Initiatives in India-

“Top Incubation Center”1. Centre for Innovation, Incubation&

Entrepreneurship (CIIE) - IIM Ahmedabad Set up in 2001 Since inception CIIE has 15-odd innovations grow out of

the incubation centre in varied technologies

2. Society for Innovation and Entrepreneurship (SINE)- IIT Bombay Set up in 2004 It currently has 16 companies under its incubation

programme


“Top Incubation Center”3. Cell for Tech Innovation, Development &

entrepreneurship support- IIT Chennai Set up in 2000 Organises national level competitions, ‘Breakthrough’

(general business plan competition) and ‘Genesis’ (social entrepreneurship plan competition)

4. Society for Innovation and Development (SID) - IISc, Bangalore Set up in 2006 The investigator is given a seed capital for Rs 20 lakh a

year for two years as soft loan for the approved plan


“Top Incubation Center”

5. The SP Jain Centre for Entrepreneurship Development- SPJIMR 16-week 'Start Your Own Business' programme-a public

programme held every six months.

6. Technology Business Incubator (TBI) - BITS Pilani In association with DST, BITS has established

Technology Business Incubator in the area of embedded systems and VLSI design back in 2004

So far, TBI has helped spawn ten companies.


“Top Incubation Center”

7. Technology Incubation and Entrepreneurial Training Society (TIETS) – IIT Kharagpur Set up in 2005, So far, the institute has been able to

incubate two companies through ‘Concipio’ over the last three years. Besides, an in house panel has helped 11-12 ventures take wing

8. Nirma Labs, Nirma University, Ahmedabad Established in 2004, Nirma Labs used to pride itself in a

three-step model for students who were interested to start their own businesses-training, incubation and funding.


“Industry-Academia Interface” Biocon Ltd and Indian School of Business

(ISB) have launched a cell for innovation management.

Hewlett-Packard (HP) India recently announced the winners of the second annual edition of ‘HP innovate 2009’. The award has been instituted to recognise and reward outstanding creative ideas of young engineering graduates in India


“Industry-Academia Interface”

Month long ‘Igniting Minds and Ideas’-IEEE certification programme by the Delhi based ISO certified strategy consulting firm ‘Total Solutions Incorporation’ (TSI) and ‘Total Resource Academy of India (TRAIN)’ a knowledge management , training and development organisation held for students of Delhi Public School (DPS), R K Puram.


“Industry-Academia Interface” The National Geographic Channel recently

announced a Nationwide contest ‘shaping the future’ with the collaboration of the Foundation for Information & Technology Transfer at IIT-Delhi; Society for Innovation & Entrepreneur at IIT-B, Nedathur S Raghvan Centre for entrepreneurial Learning (NSR-CEL) at IIM-B and the Technopreneur Promotion Programme at the Department of Scientific and Industrial Research DSIR


“Government and Non Government

Support” Delhi Technical University announced the setting

up of water technology and management centre with the support of UNESCO.

The Entrepreneurship Development Cell (EDC) of University School of management Studies, Guru Gobind Singh Indraprastha University (GGSIPU) has launched a one month business skill development programme in association with the Ministry of Micro, Small and Medium Enterprises. Representatives from KVIC, NABARD will share their knowledge.


“Government and Non Government Support”

NASSCOM has signed a Memorandum of Understanding (MoU) with University Grants Commission (UGC), for Faculty Development Programme (FDP) Re-skilling the faculty in IT Framework for co-operation to catalyze

industry-academia interface

Entrepreneurial Initiatives in India“The National Entrepreneurship Network

(NEN)”

The National Entrepreneurship Network (NEN) is a network of academic institutions across India performing research & developing and delivering world-class education, skill-building programs, networking activities and company-starting assistance to new, high-growth entrepreneurs.

Entrepreneurial Initiatives in India“The National Entrepreneurship Network

(NEN)”

NEN was launched in 2003 through an India-wide selection process to select the Founding Partner Institutions to anchor this network. The five NEN Partners are: Birla Institute of Technology and Science- Pilani Indian Institute of Technology- Bombay Indian Institute of Management- Ahmedabad Institute of Bioinformatics andApplied Biotechnology-

Banglore S P Jain Institute of Management andResearch- Mumbai

Goal: NEN’s goal is to launch 2,500 entrepreneurs who will create a

minimum of 500,000 jobs by 2014.

Knowledge Transfer : Problems Faced (Status of Entrepreneurship & Higher

Education)

India is ninth in the Global Entrepreneurship Monitor (GEM) survey of entrepreneurial countries

It is highest among 28 countries in Necessity based entrepreneurship, while 5th from the lowest in opportunity based entrepreneurship.

Entrepreneurship in India is basically necessity based. Number of individuals taking entrepreneurship as a career choice is much lower as compared to forced entrepreneurs


Education)

Universities and Colleges: (in 2007) Universities: 378 NAAC Accredited: 140 Colleges: 18064 NAAC Accredited: 3492

UGC-NAAC (Panning Commission Vol. 2 p-22)

Despite such growth, India’s Gross Enrolment Ratio (GER) of around 11% is very low compared to the World average of 23.2%, 36.5% for countries in transition, 54.6% for the developed countries, and 22% for Asian countries.


Education)

38.8% of the Indian labour force is illiterate, 24.9% of the labour force has had schooling up to the primary level and the balance 36.3% has had schooling up to the middle and higher level.

About 80% of the workforce in rural and urban areas does not possess any identifiable marketable skills.


Education)

Times Higher - QS World University Rankings 2008 (on the dimensions: Research Quality, Teaching quality, Graduate Employability, International Outlook): No Indian University in the top100 universities of the

world. US- 37, UK-17 and China-5 Universities in top 100

universities of the world IIT- Delhi: 154th position. IIT-B: 174th, IIT-K: 242nd, Delhi

University: 274

Knowledge Transfer : Problems Faced Training & Research

Global Entrepreneurship Monitoring report (GEM-08): Positive relationship between training in starting a business and entrepreneurial attitudes, aspirations and activity.

The proportion of individuals who had received any training in starting a business, either in school or after school, varied from 40% in Colombia to 8% in Egypt (among factor driven

countries) 43% in Chile to 6% in Turkey (among efficiency driven

countries) 48% in Finland to 13% in Israel (among innovation driven

countries)


Our education system lacks encouragement for short term and useful vocational training courses and research.

We take 7.5 lakh engineers on an average every year but only a handful approx 4000 opt for research.

India spent 6% of GDP on education while China 10% and Malaysia 10%.

India accounts for less than 2% of the world publications in the areas of science and technology research.


Proportion of trained youth in India is one of the lowest in the world. The corresponding figures for industrialized countries are much higher, varying between 60% and 96% of the youth in the age group of 20–24 years.

One reason for this poor performance is the near exclusive reliance upon a few training courses with long duration (2 to 3 years) covering around 100 skills. In China, for example, there exist about 4000 short duration modular courses which provide skills

Knowledge Transfer : Problems Faced Course Curriculum

NCERT has introduced new subjects like heritage crafts, creative writing and translation, computer and communication technology, human ecology and family studies, but there are few takers of these courses.

The admission procedure for the first year at colleges have remained as rigid as they were, reinforcing the rigidity of the class XII examination.

Knowledge Transfer : Problems Faced Course Curriculum

Average Indian students are generally hard-working but they lack research orientation. Average American University relies heavily on self-discovery, reflection, open ended questions and analysis.

These concerns have also been raised by National Curriculum Framework (NCF-2005). It poses three key challenges: Linking the child’s life at home with learning at school, Discouraging rote learning and moving beyond the textbook.

Knowledge Transfer : Problems Faced Faculty, Infrastructure & Society

There is shortage of quality teachers in India. Faculty are generally not available in the universities and they lack research orientation. The student teacher ratio is too high which hinders the personal monitoring and guidance from faculty.

Even today 9-5 jobs people are treated with added respect than a starter of a business.

Knowledge Transfer : Problems Faced Faculty, Infrastructure & Society

Procedural simplicity to start a business is a great motivation factor for entrepreneurs

Easiest RankMost

DifficultRank

Australia 1 Syria 169Canada 2 Haiti 170New Zealand

3Guinea

171

United States

4Equatorial

172

Ireland 5 Angola 173United Kingdom

6Eritrea

174

Puerto 7 Yemen 175Mauritius 8 Togo 176

Singapore 9 Chad 177

Georgia10

Guinea-Bissau

178

Approach to Higher Education & Knowledge Transfer

The functioning of Indian universities has to be reformed (Yash Pal committee report and the Knowledge Commission recommendations)

“Since a vast majority of our graduates are getting taught in colleges that are affiliated to some university, it should be clear that if the quality of higher education is to be improved, this system of affiliating university has to be reformed.”


Entrepreneurship needs to be taught in schools and colleges. They should be encouraged to consider entrepreneurship as one of the career option

India National Knowledge Commission (NKC) was constituted on June 13, 2005 by Prime Minister Manmohan Singh to advise the PM to encourage innovation led growth and improve the state of research in India.


Indian government initiatives to make Indian higher education innovation oriented: The government plans to set up 14 innovation

universities over the next few years. For this the ministry for human resource

development is keen to tie up with the world’s leading universities (Like Yale, Standford and MIT) to ensure that its “innovation universities” are a class apart from the pack.


Societal sentiment towards entrepreneurship can be changed by increasing literacy rate among the population of India. Government has put emphasis on these aspects in twelfth plan paper “We should aim to increase the GER to 21% by the end of the Twelfth Plan.”

Evolve suitable eco-system for the promotion of entrepreneurship: Easing of financing the project, suitable changes in labour laws, company law and taxation.

Government should also help open various entrepreneurship cells in schools and colleges.


Educational institutions can be setup near the research facilities.

Greater industry-academia interface in the education system.

Universities should have separate research and innovation wing. Universities should provide the necessary resources required for spin off and incubation.


The idea of creating National Higher Education Finance Corporation by HRD ministry can be said a step taken in right direction. It will also provide venture capital to a university to incubate any scientific or technological idea or product that has emerged as an outcome of any research undertaken by the university.


University should encourage flexibility in their course curriculum. It should be adaptive and relevant. Problem solving, project based academic curriculum right from elementary school all the way through college and university education.

People from business and industry can be engaged on course programme advisory committee. Companies can also work as an advisory capacity with universities to provide appropriate inputs.


Education system must also be corruption free.

Patent regime can also encourage the innovation in universities. After 2005, since the time India has agreed to recognised product patents as per WTO-TRIPS agreement, the research activities has increased.

A good qualified research oriented Mentor is must for the Knowledge transfer process.

Approach to Higher Education & Knowledge Transfer: Importance of a Mentor Mentors are the linking pin between the idea

germination & business conception and one of the very important constituents of the entrepreneurship process. A mentor can ease the process of building up a business from scratch.

Faculty acting as mentor must have research orientation and experienced enough to judge the soundness and feasibility of the idea.

He should not only be capable of giving a vague idea into a concrete concept, but also terminating an idea if he or she happens to be unclear about the business’ objective and the method of execution.


Importance of a MentorOne thing is quite clear. A mentor can ease the process of building up a business from scratch. When 20-year old Kolkata-based Karan Walia attended a one-month management and entrepreneurship course at the London School of Economics in August last year, he was heavily influenced by Ian Richardson, a faculty member at LSE. Even before his plane had landed in Kolkata, he was determined to start a brokerage on his own.

Menon, N., “Class room CEOs” Economic Times, 13 June 2008, p11

Conclusions Universities must act as the center of research

and knowledge development. Universities have to accept greater

responsibilities and challenges. Able mentors. Creating synergy with greater industry-

academia interface. Building entrepreneurial culture in the education

system right from secondary to higher education.

Infrastructural support.

Thank YouICMIS 2010

(21st January 2010)

Ajay Shashi Kiran 21

Documents

problems facedcourse curriculum

problems facedtraining

lack research orientation

higher education

national entrepreneurship network

higher education

problems faced

concepts