Prayagraj: Allahabad University is now planning to look for startup ideas directly in classrooms and departments, instead of waiting for students to approach its incubation centre. The university will launch a drive to identify students with innovative ideas and help them turn these ideas into viable startups. The move comes as more students are showing interest in entrepreneurship and starting their own ventures rather than opting only for conventional jobs. As part of the drive, the incubation centre will reach out to different departments to find ideas that can have commercial or social applications.
Because they lack resources, mentoring and an appropriate platform, prof Shefali Nandan, coordinator of the university’s incubation centre, said students often come up with ideas for solving a technical problem or developing a new product or service, but many such ideas remain confined to paper.
Significantly, the university does not want the search for startup ideas to remain restricted to science, technology or management departments. Students from social sciences, commerce, arts and other disciplines will also be encouraged to participate. The university feels that students from different courses may spot field-specific problems and find innovative solutions for them. The campaign across departments is meant to bring in a larger number of ideas, instead of depending only on those students who already know about entrepreneurship and reach out to the incubation centre. The initiative is aimed at creating an entrepreneurial culture across the university, while giving students a platform to transform classroom ideas and research-based solutions into ventures.