One of the sessions of the conference was themed ‘Strengthening Entrepreneurship by Ensuring an Effective Higher Education Eco-System Trends in Entrepreneurship and Innovations in Higher Education to Promote 4 E's – Education, Employability, Employment, and Entrepreneurship.’ The session chaired by Prof. Mona Khare, Professor, and Head, Deptt. of Educational Finance, Centre for Policy Research in Higher Education. NIEPA (Ministry of Human Resource Development, Govt of India) had Mr. Srinivas Kollipara, COO, T-Hub, Hyderabad; Prof. Avula Damodaram, Vice-Chancellor, Sri Venkateswara University, Andhra Pradesh; Prof G Nageshwara Rao, Vice Chancellor , Andhra University, Vishakapatnam, Andhra Pradesh; Phanindra Sama, Chief Innovation Officer, Govt. of Telangana & Founder RedBus and Prof Ajay K Jain, Director, Institute of Management Studies, Ghaziabad as the eminent panellists.
Phanindra Sama initiated the talk by saying that “Innovation cannot be done in a day. Innovation is designing things in a structured way to get an outstanding output.” Sama also talked about the need of taking a leap from Factor Driven Economy to Innovation Driven Economy. Furthermore, Sama said that once the problem of mismatch of Industry and Academia is addressed the employment and entrepreneurship will have an accelerated growth.
On the other hand, Srinivas Kollipara was of the opinion that identifying the problem is the first step for innovation. He also emphasized on the need of nurturing and training the mindset of entrepreneurs according to the existing requirement. “Expertise in the particular area leads to an in-depth understanding of the problem,” added Kollipara. He also mentioned that continuous upgradation of skills helps to sustain the current competitive environment.
One of the panelists, Prof Ajay K Jain mentioned that an entrepreneurship mindset must include four things- risk-taking, unlearning, attitude, and optimism. He also mentioned that ego and attitudes should be changed to encourage entrepreneurship.
While Phanindra Sama was of the opinion that setting up of informal clubs will help in building ecosystem, Srinivas Kollipara believes that guided learning and industry interaction will help in building the ecosystem.