DARE - Because Entrepreneurs Do

We need to create an entrepreneurial culture that sustains innovation and equally promotes businesses that have the potential of redefining existing paradigms and creating long-term stakeholder wealth. There is no magic bullet for this, but here are some highlighted key areas that we can work on.

First, create a culture of risk taking early on in a student’s formative years. More middle class parents should encourage their kids to take up summer jobs. Apart from pocket money, this provides exposure to the world outside the classroom and leads to the kind of lateral thinking that is absent in traditional curriculum.

Rangarajan Sridhar Associate Director, Deputy Head (South Asia), JAFCO Asia

Second, educational institutions need to have much stronger tie-ups with industry. While some good work is being done by technology institutes in India — a couple of the Indian Institutes of Technology even have active venture incubation centres— we’re yet to see any successful products coming out of these endeavours. Colleges should have more faculty with commercial or industry experience and institutions should build relations with premier companies to enable quality internship opportunities for students.

Finally, the government’s role in fostering a culture of innovation cannot be overemphasised. With a few notable exceptions, most successful industries in various countries enjoyed strong government support and/or subsidy in the initial days of their growth.

Comparisons with China, however, odious, drive home the point that India is way behind in the innovation game. More needs to be done by way of grants and soft loans. Tax breaks to technology companies that develop products, rather than labour arbitrage based services, should be considered.

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