T.N. Startup Summit: Experts call for early exposure to entrepreneurial experiences in schools to nurture innovation among students
Instilling entrepreneurial education at the school level is key to shaping the future. Educational institutions have a pivotal role in providing early exposure to creative thinking among students, said experts in a session organised at The Hindu-Tamil Nadu Startup Summit 2025 held in Chennai on Thursday.
The summit was organised by The Hindu along with SRM Institute of Science and Technology, and co-presented by StartupTN in association with Sify Technologies.
Addressing the session on 'Startup Success Begins in the Classroom:The Power of Education in Innovation', Krishnan Balasubramanian, Institute professor, IIT Madras, spoke about his experiences in mentoring startups. The focus was to enable mindset change among faculty and students to bring deep tech solutions from lab to market.
Noting that expectations about educational institutions had evolved from teaching, research to metrics of patents and their translational effect, he said building startup ecosystems was one of the strong translational effects. Every institution must commit itself to creating an entrepreneurial ecosystem and take learning beyond the classrooms. Students have to look at technological learning and also raise funds for their ventures.
He said students need to be on board early to cultivate innovation skills. The concept must spread to other streams like agricultural institutions apart from engineering colleges.
Revathi Venkatraman, professor and chairperson, School of Computing, SRM Institute of Science and Technology, said, 'Students are encouraged to discuss failed attempts and promote the culture of entrepreneurship in academic environment. They are motivated to embrace failures, adopt solutions and emerge resilient.'
Emphasising the introduction of entrepreneurial skills at school level, she said college students were exposed to a series of interventions, including boot camps and interaction with successful entrepreneurs. These interventions boosted their confidence to cope with failures. They also learnt about challenges of rural people through community connect programmes and came up with socially relevant solutions, she added.
Pointing out that incubation cells were a source of support to startups, Shaivee Malik, co-founder and COO, Yotuh Energy, said such cells were part of ecosystem and helped discuss issues with other startup founders. Mentorship and motivation were important particularly for those venturing into a sector without background.
Sudarshan Varatharajan, co-founder and CEO, Bversity, too underlined the significance of introducing entrepreneurial experiences early in schools and said it would help mindset among students and expose them to business and innovation skills.
Chandran Krishnan, managing director and CEO, Campus Angels Network who moderated the session, said universities were becoming hubs for entrepreneurship, innovation and incubation.
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