Are you going to be graduating soon?

"If so, how many jobs are you going to create"

This is a poster in a popular US university, which in a way is encouraging youngsters to be entrepeuners and risk takers. This was mentioned by Dr. Mashelkar (President of CSIR labs in India) in his talk on how India can rise to the challenge of creating an environment to nurture ideas to become economic succcesses. This was at the inauguration of the NCL innovation part in Pune, where they plan to nucleate and nurture technology and knowledge based enterprises and support research projects which have a potential of growth in the global markets.

He mentioned how the youngsters in India are beginning to think differently and are willing to take risks to follow through their dreams. Of course this calls for a major culture change in the mind set of the youngsters.

Prof. Sir Richard Friend from Cambridge, who has launched two successful ventures from the small town of cambridge mentioned now a town with a population of 100,000 has 900 small companies generating an employment of 27,000 (averaging 30 people per company). Each of these small companies is a valuable asset to the UK nation, since they have a solid potential to scale economically thus enabling wealth creation for the people and the nation. Of course its a daunting task to convert science to technology to products which can be mass manufactured, but all the speakers stressed on the importance of enjoying your work through the pains and the joys of being cashless, struggling to acquire and retain talent, fighting off the predators (read large companies with full koffers), innovating to maintain leadership, and maintaining gumption through all this for a rewarding journey which in itself is the biggest takeaway.

Dr Mashelkar mentioned how Chinese universities have successfully incubated 2800 small businesses generating employment for about 90,000 people (again averaging around 30 people per company).

The question to be answered is, that if USA can do it via Silicon valley, Europe can do it via a small town like cambrdige, Asia can do it as demonstrated by China, so why cant India ? I think we the people have to do some introspection into our basic values and create a culture of loyalty and commitment, risk taking, wealth creation (not the same as earning via jobs) to lead a more fullfilling and visible life.