Ministry of Education’s Innovation Cell organised an Orientation Session on IIC 6.0 (2023-24) & features on August 2nd, 2024 from 11:00 a.m. onwards. Mr. Dipan Sahu, National Coordinator - NISP, IIC & ARIIA, MBA/PGDM in IEV Program, MHRD's Innovation Cell, AICTE was the eminent speaker of the session.
The objective of the session was to orient IICs on IIC 6.0 registration and participation guidelines. The session introduced the new features of IIC 6.0 portal and guided the participants to use it. In addition, the session provided a glance through various programs and schemes for IIC institutions and incentives alongside charting the measurement of performance of IIC institutions' effort. Dr. Dipan Kumar Sahu, Assistant Innovation Director, Ministry of Education’s Innovation Cell was the resource person on the occasion who enlightened the participants comprehensively about the objectives of MoE’s Innovation Cell. The session elaborated the significance of Intra-Institutional interactions and synchronization of efforts.
In the beginning of the session, Dr. Sahu highlighted the resource sharing and utilization, planning and coordination of entrepreneurial activities, I&E skilling, and upgradation (reskilling and up-skilling) are useful aspects in maintaining an effective system to institutionalize the Innovation and Entrepreneurship Ecosystems in Higher Educational Institutions. In terms of leadership, Dr. Sahu emphasized need for the commitment and involvement of top leadership, innovation and entrepreneurship in mission and vision, competent human resource and in-house mentoring ability, and faculty mentors and role models. Setting of key performance indicators, benchmarking ecosystem, setting annual targets, assessing the impact, and revisiting action plans are crucial to ensure the effective performance of Institution’s Innovation Council.
IIC plays a crucial role in synchronization and integration of policy programs through policy implementation. Ministry of Education (MoE), Govt. of India has established ‘MoE’s Innovation Cell (MIC)’ to systematically foster the culture of Innovation amongst all Higher Education Institutions (HEIs).
The primary mandate of MIC is to encourage, inspire and nurture young students by supporting them to work with new ideas and transform them into prototypes while they are in their formative years Since 2018, the nation has witnessed a steady and promising growth. This provides institutes and their students with myriad opportunities to find platforms to innovate, collaborate and seek support for enhancing and enriching their skill sets.
Dr. Sahu explained the decentralized approach of MoE’s IIC and institutionalizing constituent institutions from a particular University to get organized for better performance, governance and growth of the IIC network. He explained that clustering and representation of institutions located in the campus/city as part of the University is useful in promotion and formation of Constituent-IIC with at least an Institutional unique ID or AISHE code assigned by any apex body. The need for maintaining innovation repository was also discussed.
The session further focused on the e-learning resources and managing incubation details that could help the faculty and students to enhance their technical and practical skills. Dr. Sahu suggested that the financial support for IIC institutions could be sought for organizing impact lectures by inviting experts for generating awareness among students and faculty members and encouraging engagements in innovation and entrepreneurship with geographical/locational disadvantages such as:
- North-East region, J&K, Ladakh, and other Himalayan states
- Aspirational districts of country
- Institutional disadvantage such as non-technical institutions having a weak connection with regional and national startup ecosystem.
The importance of collaboration in managing activities across different institutions could be helpful in creating promising infrastructure and effective initiatives for the future of IIC, said Dr. Sahu. Over 1000+ participants attended the session from various Indian colleges and universities. It provided a suitable opportunity to faculty members across India to understand the features and usage of IIC 6.0 portal. 11 faculty members of IIC 6.0 of Jagan Institute of Management Studies, Rohini attended the session.