IITs ranked higher than Harvard: Smriti Irani

The Indian Institutes of Technology (IITs) are ranked fourth on a list of 50 best entrepreneurial undergraduate institutes in the world, Human Resource Development Minister Smriti Irani said Friday.

Quoting the compilation by PitchBook Data, a US-based private equity and venture capital research firm, Irani said that the "feat calls for or further celebrations as the IITs have been ranked higher than some of the best Ivy League universities such as Harvard".

The minister was speaking at the inauguration of a one-day conclave on entrepreneurship education here. It was organised by the All India Council for Technical Education (AICTE) to discuss the relevance and importance of entrepreneurship, startups and incubation centers in Indian academic institutions.

"We hope to revamp our pedagogy and curriculum to make it more relevant to our society and our students market-ready, not just domestically but also internationally," she added.

The minister referred to the rankings while stressing on the need to inculcate an entrepreneurial mind set among the youth, noting that knowledge and entrepreneurship are key to take the country ahead.

Irani said her ministry would soon operationalise a "council for higher education and industry" so that "together we can bring about solutions that our nation has so long sought".

The study also highlighted that IITs had a total 264 entrepreneurs, who have founded 205 companies and cumulatively raised $3.15 billion.

Irani said that the paradigm of education should be such that it is able to cross the knowledge with analytical skills and logical reasoning, helping students acquire skills and entrepreneurial qualities.

"We would also like to inculcate an entrepreneurial mind set, not only in schools and colleges through changes in curricula but through introduction of teaching training and teaching material designed especially for entrepreneurship," she said.

Noting that innovation has become increasingly open and collaborative today as opposed to the existing close in-house innovation models, the minister suggested development of innovation clusters to promote collaboration between research organisations, industry and university.