Minister of State for Education Dr. Subhas Sarkar e-released the annual performance of Institution’s Innovation Councils (IICs) for the academic year 2021-22 and unveiled the annual report of IIC 2021-22 today. During the program, YUKTI Innovation Challenge 2023 was also announced for IIC institutions to nominate best innovations through YUKTI Innovation Repository portal to MoE’s Innovation Cell for further mentoring and funding assistance to innovators.
Dr. Sarkar credited Prime Minister Shri Narendra Modi for his visionary leadership for the growth in the space of innovation and startups ecosystem of our country. He has called upon the youth to actively participate in YUKTI Innovation Challenge to ideate, innovate, and develop new technologies. He quoted Dr. A.P.J Abdul Kalam, Former President of India, “Learning gives creativity, creativity leads to thinking, thinking provides knowledge, knowledge makes you great” and urged educational institutions to come forward and establish themselves as epicenters for innovation and making India a knowledge economy and global hub for innovation & startup.
More than 6400 Institution’s Innovation Councils (IICs) have been established in higher educational institutions which gives a systematic and structured approach to conduct innovation and entrepreneurship activities round the and building a vibrant innovation and startup ecosystem development in campuses.
During the academic year 2021-22, a total of 63288 numbers of I&E activities were conducted by these IICs which is double the number of activities conducted in the previous year. It’s evident from the annual performance that the average exposure of an individual to participate in innovation and entrepreneurship activities per year has increased substantially from less than 4 numbers in 2018-19 to 8 numbers in 2020-21 and 10 numbers in 2021-22 in IIC institutions.
Moreover, the IICs in HEIs are conducting a large number of innovation and entrepreneurship activities, because of this there is a positive and exponential increase in awareness levels among students and faculty members towards Innovation & Entrepreneurship.Dr. Abahy Jere, Chief Innovation Officer, MoE’s Innovation Cell presented a detailed report on the Institution's Innovation Council performance.
He highlighted that the Institution's Innovation Council in HEIs are ensuring a multidisciplinary interaction and partnership approach in boosting Intellectual Property (IP) generation, technology transfer, enhancing innovation and start-up outputs from academic institutions
Event concluded with the remark that the programs like Institution’s Innovation Council will certainly bring changes in the innovation landscapes in HEIs and also help them in implementing the National Education Policy (NEP) 2020 effectively.