TEACHING THE JOB CREATORS

Entrepreneurship can be taught. Professor Satyajit Majumdar at Centre for Social Entrepreneurship, School of Management and Labour Studies at Tata Institute of Social Sciences, has good reasons to believe this. "If you look at entrepreneurs as problem solvers, you need to guide them towards problem solving." The way this is done has undergone a big change over time, he says. "Five years ago, I would have focussed on building a robust business plan. Today, it would be more about having a robust product, understanding the market, engagement with customers and customer value creation. Being relevant to the market is more important than return on investment. Today, having an idea is not enough. What that idea will do is more important." His flagship course is 'Venture Planning' where, he says, he teaches "problem mapping", as you need to articulate the problem well. And how do other schools do it? "Every institution has its point of view on entrepreneurship. Many teach it as an orientation course, others approach it from a business plan perspective, where they teach financial planning, decisionmaking, negotiations and writing a business plan. Then, there are the incubation centres that have also emerged as support entities," he says. Consider what is offered at IIM-C which, three years ago, set up IIM-C Incubation Park as a not-for-profit, Section 8 company to promote entrepreneurship and innovation. Today, while it is fulfilling its goal of building a start-up ecosystem in East and North East, it is also offering new learning opportunities to post graduate students. "We have something called as Start-Up Buddy programme where students can engage with incubatees and help them solve challenges. The park has some 22 active incubatees. It has, in three years, funded 15 start-ups with money received from the government under various schemes and has committed funding worth 3.5 crore. It has now embarked on a nationwide offering called 'Smart 50 programme," says Subhranshu Sanyal, the CEO of the IIM-C Innovation Park. By March next, it hopes to vet 50,000 applications, fund 50 start-ups and mentor 400.