Jobs are few in the market but students graduating are far too many and mounting. The fissure is almost scary. The government, education regulators, accrediting n’ ranking bodies as also the HEIs must rise quickly to fix it.
One of the patent solutions lies in the HEIs building capacity in Entrepreneurship and enable Startups with far more focus involving large number of students developing interest from the first Semester itself and by adding entrepreneurship building credit courses in the curriculum.
Role of NAAC and NIRF A far more weight needs to be assigned to the entrepreneurship metrics. It shouldn’t be numerically clubbed with Placements and HEIs as a subset of Graduation Outcomes (GO) under the combined outcome metric;
Placement + Higher Studies + Entrepreneurship. Entrepreneurship should be an exclusive metric with a significant high weight both in the NIRF and NAAC. In its present form, NIRF doesn’t have a weight given for Number of startups, Funding raised, Valuation, DPIIT awards. A ₹0-revenue startup and a funded startup are equal in NIRF. Moreover, NIRF counts entrepreneurship only if the startup/self-employment is taken up within the same academic year of graduation or immediately after graduation (as first outcome). Startups founded 2–3 years later do NOT count for inclusion. It all needs a relook to enhance the focus on startups. We are all aware how HEIs launch initiatives only when driven by an hunger for top ranking and grades. It is certainly so unfortunate but true.
Role of universities
Here are 7 practical, affordable initiatives universities can run to help students launch startups—each backed by a proven best-practice model from leading institutions:
1. Micro-grants (₹25k–₹2L) for “test before you build”
🌾Small, fast grants for prototypes, pilots, customer discovery or or compliance basics—milestone-based. Design such pre-requisites in a policy.
☘️ Best practice: MIT Sandbox offers seed funding +mentoring by the proven experts.
2. A lightweight pre-incubation pipeline (Idea → Minimum Viable Product → Demo and shortlisting by experts.
🌾 A structured 6–10 week track with weekly checkpoints, peer reviews, and a final pitch day—run by a small team + alumni volunteers.
☘️Best practice: Nirmaan (IIT Madras) is a dedicated pre-incubation pathway to take student teams from idea-stage to startup-stage.
3. Founder office hours+ mentor matching (the highest ROI lever)
🌾Build a mentor bench (alumni, local founders, CA/CS, product, legal) and run weekly office hours + structured mentor matching.
☘️Best practice: Harvard Innovation Labs emphasizes dedicated mentors and mentor matching for student founders.
4.Co-working + prototyping access using existing campus spaces
🌾Convert underused rooms into a startup studio: Wi-Fi, whiteboards, meeting corners, and booked access to labs/workshops for prototyping.
🌾Best practice: Imperial Enterprise Lab (Imperial College London) provides co-working space where students can test and develop ideas. Read more on how it works. A few good universities in India offer such spaces (in addition to innovation centres).
5.Short, repeatable “venture sprints (weekend or 5-day programs)
🌾Run regular sprints: problem selection, customer interviews, basic unit economics, prototype, pitch—low cost, high momentum. Forge collaborations with a few successful startups, and invite their presence.
🌾Best practice: Cambridge Judge runs Venture Creation events designed to develop and pitch new venture ideas.
6.Student-friendly startup policies (leave/attendance flexibility)
🌾MoUs for industry pilots, and attendance flexibility for founders during accelerators/pilots. Credit courses on entrepreneurship.
7.Organise Demo Day + an “alumni angel circle (₹5k–₹10k tickets / sponsor-supported)
🌾Quarterly demo days with alumni/industry; create a small “first cheque” network
☘️ Encourage participation in tv events like Shark Tank. ☘️ Best practice: ecosystems like IIT incubators formalize incubation + investor access. Let your interested students attend more such events.
The above will have best chances of success when entrepreneurship stewardship is provided personally by the GB, VC, Principals and Deans/HODs and each School/Department takes pride in the progression of their respective Startups !
Do add a best practice if you have in addition to the above
Best Wishes,
Prof JR Sharma
