There is a clear trend among a large section of students to become entrepreneurs than take up lucrative job offers, according to Bhaskar Ramamurthi, Director, IIT Madras.
“We need to encourage this trend to see that more students become entrepreneurs and serve the nation,” he told newspersons while announcing Shaastra, the annual technical festival hosted by the Institute.
In the campus recruitment in the Institute this year, nearly 15 per cent or around 100 students have joined start up companies as compared with negligible number last year. This may be risky, but students are keen to take up challenging jobs. Some join start ups to gain experience and later turn entrepreneurs, he said. “I don’t know the reason as to why this trend is happening. However, it is good for the country,” he said.
This year’s Shaastra it is all about entrepreneurship. The Entrepreneurship Confluence dealt on issues related to entrepreneurship, corporate structure and start up culture in India. “We are building entrepreneurship thought at the Institute. We want students to look at entrepreneurship as a career option,” he said.
Speaking at a panel discussion at Entrepreneurship Confluence, Kris Gopalakrishnan, vice chairman and co-founder, Infosys, said to nurture entrepreneurship require favourable laws, government policies and a culture that accepts that 95 per cent of start ups will fail.
Entrepreneurship is about starting an initiative that is useful to the society and skill development, and involves people from outside like investors. Entrepreneurs need to put limited money in to the business and the rest should come from investors who will invest risk capital in to the business. Attracting risk capital makes the difference between entrepreneurship by necessity, which is seen a lot in India, compared to entrepreneurship by choice or design where the society invests in a business to create new product or service, said Gopalakrishnan, an alumnus of the Institute.
According to Anand Rajaraman, Founder, Junglee Corp and an alumnus of IIT Madras and Stanford, now is the best time ever in India to work for start ups or become entrepreneurs. In the past, most of the $1 billion companies used to emerge from Silicon Valley in the US. However, last year, it has been outside the Silicon Valley with companies like FlipKart and Snapdeal – both founded by IIT alumni – coming from India, he said.