India Electronics and Semiconductor Association (IESA), the premier trade body along with Electronics Sector Skills Council India (ESSCI) get together to roll out IESA Innovation Initiative (I3 Program)- a hands-on electronics engineering pedagogy program leveraging Industry CSR and targeting 100,000 engineering students per year in 5 years.
This was done alongside first edition of TechTronics 2017 – an IESA event focused on emerging technologies, opportunities and innovation in the electronics industry. IESA and ESSCI are putting together a visionary, transformational education engine to enable the start-up and innovation ecosystem in the country. This initiative is implemented by IESA Talent CIG via National ESDM Technology Research Academy (NETRA). The vision of NETRA & ESSCI is to Transform Engineering campuses into ESDM Product Innovation Centers (EPIC) through Industry Partnerships.
The program is a reality on ground with proven success model at KLE Tech University, Hubli – where the ideation energy created by the hands-on teaching program touches 400 students/ semester – and has resulted in incubating 38 startups in first 4 years with 9 startups in acceleration stage. Of these 2 startups have crossed a valuation of 100 crores and employ over 1000 persons!
The learning presented to Ministry of Electronics and IT in August has resulted in the program getting a wider visibility – and is being rolled out with due process, in 6 select Universities in North. These shortlisted Universities include Amity University, AKG Engineering College, Bennet University, BM Munjal University, Chitkara University and Manav Rachna Engineering Universtity.
With the select current 6 universities, the initiative is touching over 1500 students in North. By end 2018, NETRA plans to expand to 20 universities with approx. 4000 students by end of 2018.
“By end of 2022, the program will cover over 100,000 students per annum, creating a huge ideation energy with far reaching impact in the electronics start-up ecosystem,” Ashwini K Aggarwal, Chairman, India Electronics & Semiconductors Association “I wish to congratulate the first batch of shortlisted universities –on their successful completion of the pre-launch faculty trainings and are happy to announce initiating support for their incubator/ideation labs”.
Adding to this, Dr. Sandeep Garg, President, India Electronics & Semiconductors Association said, “IESA & ESSCI has worked together with the Central Government to shortlist the academic partners, do a capability gap analysis and completed a comprehensive cross-stream train-the-trainer workshop for shortlisted 6 institutes. NETRA is creating a talent pool along with the support of other universities to make the students industry ready, by making them learn the skills and technology for future ESDM industry.”
N K Mohapatra, CEO, ESSCI commenting on the partnership said, “In order to enable the startup and innovation ecosystem in the country, ESSCI has joined hands with IESA to build – and scale – a visionary, transformational hands-on electronics engineering engine for India. India has a flourishing future in the electronics space and global players have started recognizing this as an opportunity for strengthening their footprints in India. With IESA-NETRA as an implementation partner, we want to focus on the aspiring youth, by primarily engaging with universities across India and make students industry ready.”
