Gujarat's student startup initiative to back 500 projects

Gandhinagar: The Gujarat Government, through its Student Start-up and Innovation Policy (SSIP) programme, has lent support to as many as 4,000 innovative projects, while it braces for harnessing and upscaling 500 students' startups in the next five years.

Giving this information here at the Entrepreneurship Development Institute of India (EDI) on Thursday, Gujarat's Principal Secretary (Education) Anju Sharma said besides the innovative projects, over 2,000 prototypes had already been developed and 500 of them patented.

Sharma was speaking at the inaugural of the first edition of a two-day SSIP Student Annual Conference on Student Innovation, Start-ups and Ecosystem at the EDI campus.

As many as 155 start-ups and 118 young innovators from across the country are participating in the event along with representatives of 18 academic institutions and nine universities and 79 mentors.

Explaining the SSIP programme, Anju Sharma said, "In the stage-wise process the students are first educated about what innovation and creativity is and why is 'Design Thinking' important."

The students then come up with several innovative projects "from which certain good projects that have potential are selected by the Screening Committee of their respective institutes for prototype development," she said.

Elaborating further, Sharma said, "The prototypes that get developed result into startups for which further support to the students is provided by the government, including the patent fees and patent consultancy. Around 4,000 such innovative projects are supported by us."

Among the start-ups, 'Bogie Sauf', an automated tire air pressure maintenance system from Government Engineering College in Dahod in central Gujarat, 'Booz- Hello Skate Mobility' from Gujarat University Startup and Entrepreneurship Council, 'Maarg Sahayaka' from Vishwakarma Government Engineering College were major attractions at a startups exhibition, which has also been organised.

Speaking at the conference, State's Commissioner of Technical Education Avantika Singh said the Gujarat Government had set a goal of "harnessing as well as scaling up 500 students' startups in the next five years."