Here's how IBM is fostering innovation in IITs and IIMs

At a time when India is facing a startup boom, entrepreneurship has become the top choice of youngsters across India’s educational institutions. IITs and IIMs are seeing creative minds bring their best of ideas forward like never before. But ideas are like streams which have to be channelized and made to flow to the ocean. It is this crucial part that companies like IBM are playing in Indian universities, and thereby fostering innovation in India.

The IBM University Relations team has tied up with top B-school entrepreneur cells in India to organize technology mentoring and conducting contests for students who are interested in becoming entrepreneurs or starting their own business ventures. The most recent example is a contest which was held at IIM - Bangalore's flagship event - Eximus. IBM had assigned one mentor to each of the teams who wanted to build a prototype on technologies including IoT, Analytics, Cognitive on IBM Cloud. Their programs are aiming to develop a talent pool of adaptive innovators across multiple disciplines to meet the challenges of the New Economy.

Mezjan Dallas, Country Manager, IBM India University Relations told Business Insider - “With India experiencing an upsurge in the startup space with new business models emerging due to new technologies, it is imperative for the new generation to be exposed to opportunities in these emerging technology areas. They need to develop industry relevant skills and challenge themselves to undertake entrepreneurial projects and contribute to the society at large.”

He further added – “There has been positive feedback from startups on the simplicity and ease of use of IBM’s Cloud platform and Cognitive solutions.”

Owing to fruitful and productive association with B-schools so far, the University Relations wing at IBM is now actively seeking more collaborations and relationships with Indian universities.

Dallas said - “Our goal is to develop long-term, mutually beneficial collaborative relationships with the faculties across academic institutions by fostering advanced research, promoting university-industry exchanges, mentoring start-ups, providing infrastructure and technology support, and cultivating tomorrow’s world-class researchers. A focus on encouraging social entrepreneurship through Universities is on the horizon. Learning of cool technologies such as IBM’s Watson by way of fun avenues such as programming Robots with Watson is also on the horizon.”

Here are some other ways the company is encouraging entrepreneurship:

Drone demos and hands-on workshops:
IBM conducted drone-themed hackathon at IIT Hyderabad which saw students come up with creative ideas such as gesture controlled drones, drones for disaster scenarios, and atmospheric parameters with drones to name a few. One student demonstrated how drones can be used to detect gas leakages and prevent disasters in coal mines.

IBM and Venturesity 'Career Challenge' for industry readiness
Keeping in view the skills gap in emerging technology areas, the company invited engineering students across India to register for their workshops and get training in the areas of mobile app development, cognitive computing including IBM's Watson technology and data analytics. Read all about it here.

IBM and IIM Ahmedabad Cognitive Entrepreneurship Challenge
CEC was part of "Masterplan 2016" which is an annual competition held within IIM-A where students and startups build business solutions and win exciting prizes. The main objective of CEC was to encourage young entrepreneurs and the student community to build business solutions around capabilities using IBM's Cloud platform – Bluemix. Students were also given access to other relevant IBM technology platforms in the areas of Analytics and Security.

Hackathons and internships
By way of hackathons, the company is also encouraging developers to build innovative applications and come up with new ideas usually based on a theme. IBM’s internship program 'Extreme Blue' is another avenue for top technical leaders to innovate with students from some of the best universities in the country.