Union Human Resource Development Minister Ramesh Pokhriyal ‘Nishank’ attended the first Annual Innovation Festival of the MHRD’s Innovation Cell (MIC), which was organised in coordination with the All India Council for Technical Education (AICTE) in New Delhi on September 11.

Pokhriyal said the ministry had last year initiated the separate innovation cell with support from AICTE to foster a culture of innovation in all educational institutions.

“As India aspires to be a $5 trillion economy by 2024, the country needs to emerge as a global innovation, entrepreneurship and startup hub. Considering India’s current demography, youngsters need to be at the forefront of this innovative movement and Indian higher education institutes need to play a key role and emerge as centres of excellence producing global quality research and innovation,” he said.

Pokhriyal further said that MHRD’s Innovation Cell with the support of AICTE has undertaken multiple initiatives to ensure that innovation becomes the primary fulcrum of our technical education.

Pokhriyal also launched Smart India Hackathon 2020, Atal Ranking of Institutions on Innovation Achievements (ARIIA) 2020 and Institution’s Innovation Council 2.0. The event also witnessed the release of the startup policy document and launch of Vishwakarma Award.

Institution’s Innovation Council

An innovation cell has been established at AICTE in July to undertake / initiate various innovation related activities such as establishing Institution’s Innovation Councils (IICs) in higher educational institutions (HEIs).

The MHRD’s Innovation Cell has envisioned establishing a strong network of IICs in higher educational institutions to promote innovation and startup in academia through multitudinous modes leading to an innovation promotion ecosystem in these campuses.

The IIC programme was inaugurated on November 21, 2018 at AICTE headquarters in New Delhi and a network of over 950 IICs has been established across the country. Through various activities driven by the MIC and IICs at HEIs level has made an impact with reach out to more than 7.5 lakh students and 63,000 faculties to receive exposure on various aspects of innovation and startups.

Through IIC, institutes are encouraged to design semester wise activity plan, organise and report at IIC portal to obtain scores and star ratings as an incentive.

The new IIC calendar plan with advanced features has been introduced from July with an addition of 439 new IICs.

Launch of ARIIA 2020

The Atal Ranking of Institutions on Innovation Achievements (ARIIA) is an initiative of the MHRD to systematically rank all major educational institutions and universities on indicators related to promotion of Innovation and Entrepreneurship Development among students and teachers.

ARIIA was launched on August 30, 2018, and implemented by the Innovation Cell and AICTE in technical partnership with INFLIBNET, Gandhinagar.

The top 10 institutes in public funded and top five institutions in private or self-finance categories were declared.

For ARIIA 2020, the ranking list of up to 100 will be prepared under two major categories - govt-funded and self-financed institutions.

National Innovation and Startup Policy

In India, innovation is still not the epicentre of education. In order to achieve the cultural and attitudinal shift and to ensure that innovation and startup culture is the primary fulcrum of our higher education system, a policy framework and guidelines are necessary.

The Guidelines on National Student and Faculty Startup Policy 2019 for higher education institutions envisions a system oriented towards startups and entrepreneurship opportunities for students and teachers.

The guidelines provide ways to Indian higher education institutions for developing entrepreneurial agenda, managing IPR ownership, technology licensing and equity sharing in startups or enterprises established by faculty and students of these HEIs.

The guidelines will enable these institutions to actively support their faculty, staff and students for participation in innovation and entrepreneurship related activities, thus encouraging students to consider startups and entrepreneurship as a viable career option.