AWANTIPORA – Furthering its mandate of creating and supporting a highly successful entrepreneurial culture in the JKUT, Centre for Innovation and Entrepreneurship Development of Islamic University of Science and Technology (IUST) Awantipora and Grassroots Innovations Augmentation Network (GIAN) team Tuesday organised a roundtable discussion on entrepreneurship and Innovation and a joint meeting with Industry-Innovators.
The program was attended by various young innovators from different parts of the valley who demonstrated their innovations and interacted with experts from IUST, GIAN India and prominent industrialists of the valley.
Founder of GIAN-India and Padma Shri Awardee Prof Anil K Gupta, who was the chief guest, followed the presentations by innovators and assured them of complete support from GIAN. Prof Gupta also appreciated IUST’s initiatives in the area of innovation and entrepreneurship and congratulated the budding innovators for their contribution towards the development of science and technology in J&K. “There is a lot of potential in Jammu and Kashmir in innovation. It is important to attend to every aspect and we should work together to achieve greater heights in innovation.” Gupta said.
Vice-Chancellor, IUST, Prof. Shakil. A. Romshoo, who inaugurated the round table discussion spoke about the rapid growth of IUST in the areas of entrepreneurship, Innovation and research sector and called these as IUST’s signature strengths as has been witnessed through major achievements in the recent past including university’s position in the Band ‘Performer’ in the recently released Atal Ranking of Institutions on Innovation Achievements (ARIIA).
While deliberating on IUST’s policy on innovation, Prof. Romshoo exhorted upon the members to identify these as thrust areas for contributing towards society’s overall development and for expansion of their emancipated network. “People have already started taking note of IUST as we have been targeting community-centric initiatives in the innovation and entrepreneurship development for social wellbeing, and we need to effectively create an awareness among the youth regarding the new innovative technologies to motivate them to plan their own start-ups,” he said.
During the meeting with innovators, Dean Academic Affairs Prof. A.H Moon highlighted IUST’s objective behind establishing CIED and assured the budding innovators of university’s support and hand-holding in future. He also remarked about CIED’s intention to intervene in the market by discovering and developing various products and playing a role in increasing the productivity in the valley.”
Earlier Director CIED, Dr. Parvez Ahmad Mir who hosted the sessions also briefed about the themes and Centre, which has been recently established with six verticals to promote entrepreneurship and innovation and has been rigorously working in this direction.
Various entrepreneurs from the valley including Chairman Rahim Greens Abdul Hamid Bhat, CEO Kashmir Motors Ufair Ajaz and Secretary Industrial Association Lassipora Sarwar Malik also shared their thoughts during the meeting with innovators.
Others present during the roundtable discussion were Registrar IUST Prof. Naseer Iqbal, Dean Research Prof. Haroon Naik, Finance Officer Sameer Wazir, Media Advisor to VC Dr. Monisa Qadiri and various Coordinators and members from the CIED. Syed Nadeem and Sabzar from GIAN-JK were also present during the session.
