Revenue and Information Technology Minister M.O.H.F. Shahjahan exhorted graduates to become entrepreneurs rather than run after jobs.
Inaugurating an Innovation Café and various other entrepreneurship development programmes at Pondicherry Engineering College (PEC) recently, he said that the youth had innate talents in them. The youth have a lot of entrepreneurial talents and they should be job providers rather than job seekers.
Mr. Shahjahan said that youth should come out of their comfort zones and be ready to take risks to become a successful entrepreneur. The Entrepreneurship Development cell of the Government would be ready to hone the skills of youngsters through training in various sectors, he said.
IIT-M pact with government
Prof. Mahesh Panchagnula, Associate Faculty in charge, Incubation Cell, IIT Madras said that the institution had inked a Memorandum of Understanding (MoU) with the Puducherry government to partner with the entrepreneurship development cell in their pursuit of developing Puducherry as a hub for entrepreneurship.
Mr. Panchagnula said that students’ dreams were now very different and most of them wanted to be their own bosses. He also called upon the government to take up sector specific entrepreneurship development that would showcase Puducherry as an example for the rest of the country. Puducherry has an advantage as it is already an education hub, he said.
Prof. S. Ramkumar, Director, Entrepreneurship Development Cell, said the Innovation Café was an effort of ‘Inclusive Entrepreneurship’ in which dropouts and those who don’t have a formal education would be given hand-holding for any viable entrepreneurship ideas. The café will be open two hours every week, he said.
Siva Mathiyazhagan, TYCL founder, and P. Dananjayan, Principal, Pondicherry Engineering College participated.