Tirupati has scope to build strong start-up ecosystem

Tirupati: With the sole objective of igniting young minds on innovation and incubation, a joint symposium was held at Sri Padmavati Mahila Visvavidyalayam (SPMVV) on Wednesday. Titled as "Building Innovation, Incubation & Entrepreneurial Ecosystem across HEIs of AP", the symposium was organised by SSIIE-Technology Business Incubator of SPMVV and Indian Institute of Technology (IIT) Tirupati along with MoE's Innovation Cell, Institution Innovation Council (IIC), AP State Council of Higher Education (APSCHE), IIT Tirupati Navavishkar I-Hub Foundation (IITTNIF) and National Institute for Micro, Small and Medium Enterprises (Ni-MSME).

Addressing the participants, Vice Chancellor Prof Jamuna Duvvuru stated that SPMVV Campus Synergy on Innovation Incubation and Entrepreneurship was formed in 2020 integrating all the centers of SPMVV to facilitate development of an "Innovation & Entrepreneurial ecosystem" in the campus. This helps to encourage, inspire, nurture new ideas and also promote sustainability among women students.

IIT Tirupati Director Prof K N Satynarayana stated that as Tirupati was a major education hub in AP there is a scope to build a strong start-up ecosystem. He added IITTNIF was set up to host the Technology Innovation Hub (TIH) in Positioning and Precision Technologies (PPT) with a funding of Rs 100 crore over five years.

Chief Innovation Officer (CIO), MHRD, MoEs Innovation Cell Dr Abhay Jere shared how gig economy influences or major building block in bridging the income and unemployment gap in future. A gig economy is a free market system in which temporary positions are common and organisations hire independent workers for short-term commitment. He lauded the idea of a joint symposium saying that the entire idea was very exciting. This kind of ecosystem creation is happening which is unique.

Director General of Ni-MSME Dr Glory Swarupa and IIIT Dr Ganesan Kannabiran director Prof G Kannabiran participated virtually. Vice Chairman of APSCHE Prof K Rama Mohan Rao, Registrar Prof D M Mamatha, Dr B K Sahu, Senior Regional Manager & Head of NRDC, Visakhapatnam, Dr J Surya Kumar, CEO, SSIIE-TBI of SPMVV, Prof S Jyothi and others also spoke.