Best time to start a new business, says Infosys co-founder

Urging universities and institutes to encourage youngsters to start business and make an attempt at entrepreneurship, Infosys co-founder Kris Gopalakrishnan on Saturday said it is the best time to start a new business.

Speaking at the national workshop on 'Development of Policy Framework for Innovation, Student Entrepreneurship and IPR' at the Gujarat Technological University (GTU), Gopalakrishnan said almost all sectors will get disrupted and transformed over the next 30 years.

"We're going through one of the most disruptive periods in technology. It has become disruptive in terms of power and accessibility. Be it automobile, health care, retail such as e-commerce, electricity or other utilities, everything will get disrupted and transformed over next 30 years. This is the best period to think about new business. We need to encourage youngsters to start business and this is what will advance our country and create new jobs," Gopalakrishnan said in his address at the workshop.

He called for creating an environment where small and medium enterprises (SMEs) were created since these SMEs drive job-creation at least for the first five years since their inception. He spoke about the need to make the local industry an active partner in supporting the local entrepreneurship development and emphasised that it is very important for the local companies to contribute to this ecosystem development process. "We need entrepreneurship by design. We need to plan and create entrepreneurship. As part of this design, we need to introduce entrepreneurship in our schools and colleges," he added.

Appreciating start-up policy decisions undertaken by the Gujarat Technical University, Gopalakrishnan said if a university makes entrepreneurship a part of its education then it would be easier for parents to accept entrepreneurship career for the start-ups for their children.