JKEDI inks MoU with HED, 'We HUB' for promoting startups, entrepreneurs

Jammu and Kashmir Entrepreneurship Development Institute (JKEDI) and Higher Education Department (HED) on Friday signed a memorandum of understanding (MoU) to promote the culture of entrepreneurship and innovation, an official spokesman said.

Separately, JKEDI also signed an MoU with 'WE HUB', India's first and only state-led incubator of the government of Telangana to promote women entrepreneurship and startup culture here, the spokesman said.

He said the MoU between JKEDI and HED was signed in presence of Commissioner Secretary, Industries and Commerce (I&C), Manoj Kumar Dwivedi and Commissioner Secretary, HED, Talat Parvez Rohella to lend expertise and evolve the ecosystem of entrepreneurship and startup environment in the colleges of the Union Territory.

This MoU will boost the entrepreneurship and startup ecosystem here as this will help us to establish entrepreneurship development cells, innovation and incubation centers in colleges besides a module of entrepreneurship course will also be offered in colleges with other degree programmes, Dwivedi said.

Terming the signing of the MoU as "historic day" for both the departments, he said we can share our expertise and build capacities among the stakeholders.

This will benefit the students across the Union Territory. There is no dearth of talent and this partnership will provide ample exposure and the students will face no difficulty in creating their own enterprises," he said.

In his address, Rohella said JKEDI has a mandate of creating entrepreneurship avenues in Jammu and Kashmir and by this collaboration between JKEDI and HED entrepreneurship courses will be started in colleges for the young generation who will be job creators rather than job seekers in coming times.

"This MoU will provide a platform for budding entrepreneurs and will create end to end solutions. They will be exposed to options of angel funding, technical expertise to create prototypes and help in up scaling and launching of the final product of startups, he said.

He said initially, we will start with 14 colleges in the cities of Srinagar and Jammu and will subsequently expand to other regions of the Union Territory.

The second MoU was inked virtually between Principal Secretary (IT, E&C), Government of Telangana, Jayesh Ranjan and Dwivedi.

"Apart from the pre-incubation, incubation and startup exchange programs between JKEDI and WE HUB of Telangana, certain aspects of Progressive Innovation Startup Policy of Telangana government can be replicated in J&K for promotion of culture of startups and entrepreneurship," Ranjan said.

He said this partnership would be productive for both the places and will help in sharing technical expertise and other domains of scaling up ecosystem of entrepreneurship.

JKEDI is starting a pre-incubation programme that would focus on women founders and co-founders, with 30 start-ups from Jammu and Kashmir and 30 from Telangana.