An entrepreneurial lab at Savitrabhai Phule Pune University (SPPU) has received 10 lakh rupees in funding from the European Union (EU).
This lab was set up on the 15th of April and is meant for social innovation. SPPU is only the fourth university to receive such kind of funding.
“The lab has been established for budding entrepreneurs from the university. Innovative ideas that will give solutions to problems related to the daily needs of people in society would be encouraged through it,” said the Director of the International Centre at SPPU, Vijay Khare, where the lab is set up.
The main goal that the lab is going for is boosting social innovation and entrepreneurship.
The international project, approved by the EU, is called Social Innovation for Local Indian and Israeli Communities and Graduate Entrepreneurs (SLICE).
The EU has been funding start up labs in Israel, Europe and India. Some of the Universities funded by the EU are: Tel-Hai Academic College in Israel, University of Edinburgh in Britain, the Technical University of Berlin in Germany, the University of Applied Science from Croatia and the University of Lisbon in Portugal.
The ultimate goal of the international project is to create Centres for Social Innovation where students and workers can together come up with innovative and creative social business solutions.
Khare also added, “We will concentrate on solar energy and alternative energy sources, the clean India campaign and manual scavenging to bring out solutions from this lab. An alternative technology to eradicate manual scavenging will be our priority.”
A workshop on entrepreneurship is scheduled to be held on the day of inauguration. It is likely that the centre will work with startups in certain areas pertaining to the goals with which the lab was created.
Hopefully, the lab will not only attract more startups to collaborate with students but also help kindle the fire of entrepreneurship among the student as well, after its inauguration on April 18th.
