Campus Innovation Clubs To Encourage Start-Ups Gets CII Boost

Bhubaneswar: The Confederation of Indian Industry (CII) is setting up innovation clubs in campuses to support, handhold, incubate and mentor start-ups in Odisha, CII Odisha state office director Suparna Nanda said on Friday.

“Such innovation clubs have been set up in six universities and colleges to encourage students to come up with ideas, small or big, and take advantage of this initiative,” she said at the inauguration of ‘Convergence-2019’, the two-day annual programme of the Institute of Business and Computer Studies, the faculty of management sciences of SOA Deemed to be University here.

The objective was to create a strong and enduring culture of innovation and entrepreneurship in the state, incubate start-ups and link them to funding agencies, she said.

Jindal Global Business School Dean Prof Tapan Kumar Panda was present as guest of honour and urged students to adapt to fast changes happening on the technology platform that impacts lives.

“In a decade from now, due to quantum computing and artificial intelligence, technology is going to take over,” he said.

“We are witnessing more changes in our times than the previous generation. These changes are drastic and destructive, not based on assumptions on which we base our life and career,” he said.

Pointing out that people increasingly suffer from diseases like loneliness and hopelessness, Prof Panda said they look for entertainment to escape from these afflictions.