Vice President M Venkaiah Naidu on Tuesday urged universities and industries to establish close linkages in order to mentor and handhold students with novel business ideas.
Addressing the TiE Global Summit-2020 through video conferencing from Visakhapatnam on Tuesday, Naidu asked the corporate sector to fund and promote entrepreneurial ecosystems on university campuses.
The IndUS Entrepreneurs (TiE) is a Silicon Valley-based non-profit organization supporting start-ups through networking.
TiE Summit-2020 will be showcasing opportunities to get mega investments into India.
The Vice President asked the universities to set up incubation centres to tap and nurture entrepreneurial talent among youngsters.
“Youngsters should become job creators instead of being job-seekers,” a report quoted Naidu as saying.
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He also on launching a special entrepreneurship drive for promoting women entrepreneurs in the country.
TiE has helped 50,000 aspiring women entrepreneurs by mentoring them in varied areas of interest.
“Entrepreneurship is not only about profits. It is also about making people’s lives better through education, health care and basic human rights,” he said.
He asked the people to value both competition and compassion as part of entrepreneurship.
The Vice President also said with more and more young people joining the labour market, the world will need about half a billion new jobs by 2030.
“The established entrepreneurs need to share their wisdom, while the universities must work through research and internships to nurture and develop entrepreneurial skills of students before they graduate,” he added.
Describing India as home to world’s third-largest start-up ecosystem, Naidu quoted a recent NASSCOM that about 50 per cent of the tech start-ups are confident of reaching revenues of pre-COVID-19 level.
“When entrepreneurs succeed, they create economic opportunity not only for Indians, but for people all over the world,” he added.