Techie on Mission to Groom Student Entrepreneurs

Vijayawada :

Global Business Incubator (GBI), an initiative by an engineer- turned-entrepreneurship campaigner, has embarked on inculcating the culture of entrepreneurship among the students of KL University (KLU), Guntur and Dhanekula Institute of Engineering and Technology (DIET), Vijayawada. GBI aims at fostering innovation and entrepreneurship among technology students.

Srinivas Gogineni, a biotech graduate from Vijayawada, who was trained in entrepreneurship in the US, set up the GBI in August, 2012 at DIET inspired by the invaluable experience he had acquired during his stay at the incubation centre in New York University (NYU).

“After completing B.Tech here, I went to the US for better prospects. But the NYU incubation centre has changed my mindset. Bruce Niswander, NYU professor inspired me to shift to entrepreneurship. As I had a liking for entrepreneurship, the switch was rewarding. Within a year of landing in the US, I was able to establish a technology company and made profit by selling it. That has prompted me to establish an incubation centre in Indian colleges which churn out so many talented students,” explains G Srinivas.

Srinivas was so excited about GBI that he flew back to his native place – Vijayawada – and started approaching colleges for support to establish incubation centre. After making rounds to various institutes, Srinivas was able to convince DIET management. Soon, KLU joined hands with GBI. While institutions provided infrastructure and financial support, GBI roped in with knowledge inputs.

“The first challenge we faced was getting technology students accustomed to the concept of entrepreneurship. As students started to know the importance of innovation, they came up with innovative projects using technology,” said Srinivas.

But for some teething problems, GBI was able to inspire students to come up with innovative technology. For instance, it runs a software services company Soft Landing which provides research and technology services to small foreign companies. About 15 students have been involved in this project.

“We used to spend a lot of time on the Facebook. For us, it was just a way of keeping in touch with friends and a favorite past time. But after attending entrepreneurship seminars conducted by GBI, we got to know the power of social media sites like Facebook, Twitter and the power of online presence. Along with five of my friends, I started ‘Soft puppy’, a digital marketing services firm, which manages online presence of companies and personalities. Now it’s not just entertaining but also educating to stay online. We also take up various technology education-related projects for schoolchildren which is very satisfying,” says Hanook, a second year BTech student at KLU.

With 300 students involved in various GBI activities, GBI has taken the first step in setting up incubators at Indian colleges.

source: http://www.newindianexpress.com / The New Indian Express / Home> States> Andhra Pradesh / by J Deepthi Nandan Reddy / May 16th, 2014

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