IIT initiative PALS conducts entrepreneurial summit for youth

Top management, faculty and students from various engineering colleges in Tamil Nadu as well as industry partners, IIT Alumni and IIT academia participated in the event. Dr. V. Irai Anbu, additional Chief Secretary to State Government, Director General (Training) and Director Anna Institute of Management was the chief guest and Prof. Bhaskar Ramamurthi, Director, IIT Madras was the Guest of Honour.

Mohan Narayanan, PALS Chairman presented the PALS Annual Report for 2018-19. He started with the major achievements of PALS, how the organization has grown over the years from six partner institutions in 2012 to 28 partner institutions in 2018 spanning over Chennai, Trichy and Coimbatore clusters. 

With active support from IIT Madras faculty as well as IIT alumni from industry, the number of events during this period has increased from one event in 2012 to 12 events and still growing. He then presented the PALS journey, covering various events conducted over the year and how it has improved over the years. He concluded with the vision for PALS in the future.

Irai Anbu who is well known for his inspiring and motivational talks, felt that students should be inspired early in their student life to be entrepreneurs. He urged that academic environment must be made conducive for expressing creativity and the right kind of faculty must be employed in the E-cells. He informed that Government of Tamil Nadu has announced a conducive start-up policy but students need to have the right spirit to derive benefit.

Dr. Bhaskar Ramamurthi, Director, IIT Madras emphasised on the importance of experiential learning. He commented on academic curriculam being constraining on students and urged colleges to consider experiential learning methods. “If even 15 per cent of our engineering students become entrepreneurs, the face of India will be changed,” he said.