How IITs Are Providing Tech Edge To Rural Enterprises

The institutes are working at the grass roots to provide entrepreneurial training and handholding to bridge the gap between the urban and rural markets

- Rajlakshmi Ghosh

With the rural and tribal sector requiring the emergence of fresh and innovative entrepreneurs, education has become a critical component to develop entrepreneurial skills. “In a country like India where around 63% of the population are in the working-age range of 15 to 59 years, the entrepreneurship prevalence rates are highest in the 25-34 age group. Educational institutes like the IITs/NITs/IISERs have a significant role in imparting entrepreneurial skill sets to the tribal and rural communities,” says Sanjukta Patra, professor at IIT Guwahati, who heads its School of Agro and Rural Technology (SART) that focusses on identifying the available skillsets at the rural and tribal sector and imparts technological interventions, legal protection knowledge and handholding to help this segment gain commercial access. “There is a need to uplift the rural and tribal sector to the same level as the urban sector in terms of available opportunities at the niche,” Patra emphasises.

Trainings and technology development

The upliftment of this sector has been accelerated with growth in digitalisation, and resultant accessibility to highspeed internet, feels Abhay Karandikar, director, IIT Kanpur that has been supporting entrepreneurs with trainings and technology developments via its Start-up Incubation and Innovation Centre (SIIC), which recently won the Best Entrepreneurial Skill Training Project award for its ‘Tech for Tribal’ programme at the inaugural Van Dhan Annual awards of the Tribal Cooperative Marketing Development Federation of India (TRIFED).