Can Education Institute Inspire Entrepreneurship?

Last week, I was invited to QMTI, one of the technical and management training institutes in Pune, India. Occasion was ‘The Annual Projects Event’ and I was the chief guest. QMTI works dedicatedly for rehabilitating disabled soldiers and their dependents. I was supposed to look at various projects done by these soldiers and say few words of encouragement. It was that simple.

And as expected, the whole thing was mostly uneventful. I went there, looked at all the projects and gave a small 10~12 min speech.

Most soldiers were only 10^th / 12^th pass and QMTI had given them some ITI equivalent training (basic electronics, soldering, welding, some computer hardware and software basics etc.). From that perspective, the projects were still quite good and reflective of what they had learned. But from the professional industry perspective, most projects were very simple, easy to do, and kind of non-challenging to our engineering minds.

So rather than project ideas, what I took home were two key observations and a very important learning.

Key Observations:

1. Most projects were ‘fully developed units / working models’ (not just diagrams, presentations or static models)
2. Jawans were immensely proud of their work and they were explaining their projects to me with all enthusiasm and energy

Key Learning:

After the ceremony, I was offered tea in QMTI director’s office. Couple of his colleagues joined us. And what I learned here made my whole visit worthwhile … about 12~14% students from each batch end-up starting their own shop / business. This number is far higher than entrepreneurial start-ups from most BA/BCom/BSc colleges in India, comparable to THE best professional colleges in India, and even higher than government setup entrepreneurial development organizations (like MCED in Maharashtra).

If these students, with only knowledge of welding and soldering, with some disability, in their 30s / even 40s in some cases, and with no financial support from friends/family, were able to take risk of entering own business, I wondered what makes students from established colleges think otherwise?

May be there is something to learn from the way QMTI ‘delivers training’.