Expert Talk on “Enabling Innovation & Startup Ecosystem

On 27.07.2024 an Expert Talk on “Enabling Innovation & Startup Ecosystem” was organized by the Entrepreneurship Development Cell and IIC in association with the Department of Computer Applications. The session was handled by Mr. M. Siva Baarathi, District Co-ordinator, EDII-TN, Tirunelveli from 01:30 PM – 4.00 PM. 55 students and 2 faculties participated. This event was coordinated by Dr M.Vijaya Maheswari EDC Co-Ordinator, Department of Computer Applications, Francis Xavier Engineering College. This event was conducted with the guidance of Dr. Lourdes Poobala Rayen, EDC Director.

The program started with the welcome address by Mrs. D.Angeline Ranjithmani, HOD, Department of MCA. Dr M.Vijaya Maheswari EDC Co-Ordinator, introduced the chief guest. In her address she explained the need for the innovation and the startup by the youngsters. In her explanation, she also motivated the students to come up with new ideologies that can be converted to a product that can be of social benefits.

The guest speaker started his speech by providing an overview of entrepreneurship and building up a startup. He explained the process of building a startup right from scratch. He enquired the students, the reason and the need for becoming a entrepreneur. The students spoke out with different and interesting reasons. He suggested activities for students to design a water bottle for kids between the age of 1-5. Students came up different ideas which were quite interesting. The water bottles designed by the students were evaluated in terms of design, cost and useful to the kids. More than 10 different models of bottles were designed and presented by the students. The speaker insisted the need for the startup and he motivated the students to become a job provider rather than the becoming a job seeker. He highlighted the selection process of projects in Hackathon and encouraged the students to take part in such kind of competitions. He also explained the funding process for the innovative projects by the Government of Tamil Nadu. The speaker came out with different and unique ideas that kindled the minds of the students to think of innovations and startups. He also explained the process of how to incorporate technology to the innovative ideas so that it will be affordable to the people in the society. He suggested the techniques for designing the prototype of the product. The speaker advised the students to think of the societal issues and develop products in a way that might solve the issues. The methods to launch the product was also explained by the speaker. He elaborated the process for applying projects through MSME. He concluded the session by urging the students to bring out new innovative ideas and implement them using technology that will benefit the people in the society. The speaker inspired the students with lot of new inspiring ideas.