India is an emerging economy and with the vision of our honourable Prime Minister Mr. Modi of transforming the youth from a job oriented mind-set right from their college days to a business oriented, evolved mind-set and push themselves to set up enterprises in various fields, the enterprises that propel to reach the dreams. PM Modi’s vision has changed the perception at all level level, the efforts in terms of ease of business supported with extraordinary efforts in raising funds through start-up India scheme or providing them with a platform for accelerating their business idea to transform into a real business through Atal Incubation centre and also getting them relived of taxes and documentation by offering them 3 years of tax holiday and least paperwork environment till they start generating revenue and jobs. These ideas and initiatives powered by excellent and fast paced execution has helped tens of thousands of start-ups budding everywhere throughout the country, very soon these start-up ideas have potential to further emerge as unicorns taking our nation to new heights.
Polaris Educational and Cultural Trust, highly inspired by the vision of our PM and its nationwide success, is picking up the baton to take it further to support the vision and trying to contribute at the grass root level, Polaris is working in three verticals viz Education, Incubation and Empowerment where Polaris is collaborating with the schools to innovate and produce great minds through its initiatives of setting up “Pencrafters club” encouraging the youth in schools to start writing because it is through the expressions they can open up their minds, Polaris identified few schools to run this club and received a huge response, soon the students will develop the habit of writing as without convincing expression nothing can convert.
Polaris’ next initiative is to set up “Science and Maths Clubs” in schools to help kids develop a scientific bent of mind and this can help transform more and more technology driven youth coming out from the schools and helping India prosper. Polaris trust through its arm Polaris Academy of Excellence is also runs one of its kind centre in North India offering free SAT coaching to high calibre and promising intermediate students, with this SAT program these students can source admission in the top universities of the United States of America, that too for free under the merit cum need based scholarships available with most of the top rated private universities in the USA. This program is bearing fruit, the 2021 batch the top scorers got admission in the University of Cincinnati and Purdue University. The current batch is working hard to score even high SAT score and targeting top universities. Under Polaris Academy of Excellence the third program is for the college students and this is in direct relation to the vision of the PM Mr. Modi for having more and more start-ups. Polaris Trust has set up an Incubation centre of its own, names PIC (Abbreviation for Polaris Incubation Centre) the vision of this program is “A start-up in every college by acting as a launch pad to take the start-up and early stage ideas from the schools and colleges to the real world”.
With a mission to nurture the ideas in young minds in small and underserved towns and turn them into shining stars in the business world by helping them accelerate by seed and incubate. PIC runs a business accelerator program to help the students develop their ideas into actual business, help industry matchmaking and raise seed funds locally. They have developed plans and milestones to evaluate program and collaborated with industry leaders for support and guidance. This signature program supports the goal of understanding entrepreneurship and diversifying engagement with a focus on underrepresented to participate and excel. PIC is partnering with small and private colleges to set up students clubs, College Innovation councils (CIC), setting up stage for them through idea competitions, organizing events, panel discussions, critical analysis, pitch deck preparation, cost and budget modelling, guest lectures, and workshops and soon will also run a week long start-up boot camp with all participating colleges who are aligned with the vision and are partnered under MOU.
Lead by an Industry veteran, Bakhtiyar Khan, with two decades of experience with finest MNCs and entrepreneurship is now dedicated to this program. His experience in diversified industries and functional areas, brings in the right mix necessary for this kind of program where the start-up aspirants needs assistance in multiple domains and functional areas all at a single point. Moreover PIC is well networked with industry and individuals spread all over the world with advisory support from the alumni of leading colleges of the world including USA, Australia, Middle East, UK and India. While in an interview with group correspondent, Bakhtiyar talked endlessly about the great vision of our PM Mr. Modi, how this vision is going to impact the world and how the rest of the likeminded people can contribute to help India prosper under this great leadership. He emphasized on the fact that sitting right in the heart of Aligarh Defence Corridor, the entire region and its colleges are to be well equipped to produce the best talent, “we are supporting the state’s intentions to establish Common Facility Centre (CFC), Centres of Excellence (CoE) and Skill Development Centres to facilitate in providing best practices, research and development and skill development”. At the forefront of the envisaged corridor that is not only targeting at setting up of manufacturing hubs but also aims at generating employment opportunities to cater to the most populous state in the country by absorbing from the locally available talent pool.
Motivated Bakhtiyar, in a candid conversation, talks about the importance of leveraging students potential, the biggest talent pool available in the country, if moulded and used properly can do wonders, he is very clear in his approach that the culture of start-up must be propagated in the highly cultivable landscape of these young brains to enable them start thinking for making their own team, collaborate and excel. He also emphasized the on cross campus collaboration where he, as a monitor, can help bring capabilities from different colleges on the same platform to shape it into a complete unit, a perfect ingredient for a successful entrepreneurship venture.
We need more and more initiatives like PIC at all levels as citizens to help build a strong and prosperous nation, these seemingly small ventures are robust growth platform for the young minds and budding entrepreneurs to start early and push with full force, supported by the private investors and government schemes, these start-ups will be the future economic drivers of our country. These initiatives are highly committed and well placed in the grass roots to uplift the aspirations as well as encourage more and more talent to join the initiative, team Polaris is not waiting for the government to support rather they are open to support the government at all levels with the best of their efforts, these efforts are commendable and deserves a loud applause.