Parents having a negative attitude to their children starting their own entrepreneurial ventures and this curtails the ambition of children and youth, according to panelists at the 76th Rajagiri Round Table Conference held on the topic, Is Time Ripe for Entrepreneurial Universities in India? organised by Rajagiri Media.

Thomas George K, Director of Lead College of Management, Palakkad said that in the past 10 years his institution was successful in developing leadership qualities in students but failed to make entrepreneurs. "Most of the students got good placements and in two three years' time they got good salaries. They didn't want to come out of the comfort zone."

He also recounted the tale of his sister's son who was doing MBA in Cambridge University and wanted to start his own business but couldn’t as his mother and wife were against it.

On a lighter vein, Biju Vithayathil, Director of Amity School of Business, Kochi who had started three startups and failed, noted that his wife had threatened to divorce him if he ever thought of a new startup venture.

Varghese Panthalookaran, Professor, Rajagiri School of Engineering and Technology said that parents should be supportive of the entrepreneurial instincts in children and provide the confidence to take their ideas forward. He said that Pallikkutam Pedagogy was evolved to involve parents and children in entrepreneurial learning at home.

J T Verghese, Chairman of Steag Energy Services, advised college students and youth to develop entrepreneurial skills as academic qualifications will not enable them to go beyond even the entry level in any organization in a volatile and uncertain world. He said that irrespective of qualifications or hierarchy in his organisation, new ideas are promoted and funded to develop entrepreneurship within the organisation.

However, MP Ganesh, Head of Entrepreneurship and Management at IIT Hyderabad, pointed out that more and more youngsters are inspired by successful entrepreneurs. No child is born with an entrepreneurial mindset but it can be developed and nurtured, he added. IIT Hyderabad has evolved new courses in entrepreneurship that allows BTech students to opt for dual degree in the fourth year and fully focus on their startup venture in the fifth year while they are in M.Tech programme.

Brenda Fellows, Professor at University of California Berkeley-Walter A.Haas School of Business pointed out that in the US, entrepreneurship is taken seriously and that has made the country successful in industry. "There needs to be high level of co-operation, collaboration, communication, team work and interconnection between thinking and decision making which happens in US universities and not in the rest of the world.”

Hossein Nezakati, Associate Professor at Sunway University School of Business also took part in the discussion which was anchored by Sreekumar Raghavan, Editor of Pallikkutam .

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