IITs Among World's 5 Best Entrepreneurial Undergraduate Institutes: Report

New Delhi: Indian Institutes of Technology (IITs) are ranked fourth on a list of 50 best entrepreneurial undergraduate institutes in the world, HRD Minister Smriti Irani said on Friday, referring to a ranking compiled by research firm PitchBook Data.

Speaking at an AICTE conclave on 'entrepreneurship education', the minister said the feat calls for further celebrations as the IITs have been ranked higher than some of the best Ivy League universities such as Harvard.

The minister referred to the rankings while underscoring the need to inculcate an entrepreneurial mindset among the youths, noting that knowledge and entrepreneurship are key to take the country ahead.

In the study, PitchBook Data, a US-based private equity and venture capital research firm, found that the IITs had a total of 264 entrepreneurs, who have founded 205 companies and cumulatively raised $3.15 billion.

The paradigm of education, she said, should be such that it is able to cross the knowledge with analytical skills and logical reasoning, helping students acquire skills and entrepreneurial qualities.

To help realise the objective, "We hope to revamp our pedagogy and curriculum to make it more relevant to our society and our students market-ready not just domestically but also internationally."

"We would also like to inculcate an entrepreneurial mindset not only in schools and colleges through changes in curricula but through introduction of teaching training and teaching material designed especially for entrepreneurship," she said.

Noting that innovation has become increasingly open and collaborative today as opposed to the existing close in house innovation models, the minister suggested development of innovation clusters to promote collaboration between research organisations, industry and university.

"This would help exploit knowledge that would otherwise be left commercially unused by university," the minister said, underlining the need for a rigorous, transparent and outcome-based method in evaluating the impact of programmes.

She said her ministry would soon operationalise a 'council for higher education and industry', adding, "Together we can bring about solution that our nation has so long sought."