Students Initiative

Chapters

SCAI

“Students’ Club for Augmenting Innovations (SCAI) at grassroots” is students’ forum facilitated through National Innovation Foundation to involve students from different education institutes to scout, spawn and diffuse innovations and example of traditional knowledge on commercial/non-commercial basis. The purpose is to generate a new model of knowledge management for sustainable development based on creativity and innovations at grassroots. So far, SCAI exists in more than 30 different management, engineering and social educational institution. National Innovation Foundation solicits students’ participation in making this countrywide innovation movement a success.

SCAI’s primary activities include:

• DISHA- a national level annual business plan competition wherein the students are invited to prepare business plan on innovation and examples of traditional knowledge from NIF database.
• DISHA-Social: A diffusion plan for mixed return and open source technologies wherein the in students are required to prepare social diffusion plan involving NGOs and CVOs.
• SAAKAR- to scout for entrepreneurs who have the ability and inclination to start a business enterprise on innovations from NIF’s database.
• Mentoring and incubating ongoing projects.
• Taking up specific technologies for value addition in technology institutes either as student projects or jointly by students and faculty.
• Market research and technical benchmarking for specific technologies being incubated in different GIANs (Grassroots Innovation Augmentation Network).
• Organizing seminars and workshops in which clearing house can be organized among entrepreneurs, investors and innovators.
• Pursuing scouting and documentation of innovations and traditional knowledge in the neighborhood of the respective colleges or during vacation near the places where students live.

DISHA

With the objective of fulfilling NIF’s larger goal of up-scaling grassroots innovations and instances of traditional knowledge SCAI presents DISHA- an Annual Business Plan Competition which gives students an opportunity to convert innovations and traditional knowledge at grassroots into practical business propositions. Students from educational institutions participate to prepare business plans for technologies from the database of NIF and the best ones get rewarded suitably. These business plans would be used by NIF as investment opportunity document (IOD) for approaching prospective entrepreneurs and mentors who would help convert these innovations into products and enterprise/commercialize the same. NIF also has a dedicated incubation fund called Micro Venture Incubation Fund (MVIF) to render financial assistance to all entrepreneurial initiatives based on grassroots innovations. Hence, it is desirable that the business plans prepared by the students are realistic and practical and help build a value chain around innovations by providing incubation assistance.

DISHA was launched in the year 2004,at two events DISHA –North, a regional competition covering 9 north Indian state and DISHA- 2004, an all India event. DISHA has been a grand success with participation from 557 teams representing 79 premier educational institutes.

SAAKAR

SCAI club organizes SAAKAR: an event for scouting of entrepreneurs among the students from different management institutions and impart capability and inclination to start a business on grassroots innovation/ traditional knowledge from NIF database. Students are also offered Venture Capital Support to convert their business plans into enterprises, in this nationalwide event. This year NIF and SPJIMR, Mumbai organized SAAKAR 2009 on February 2009 with coordination with TePP, DST.

SAAKAR serves the primary objectives of:

• Enabling students synergize their business acumen with grassroots genius. In the process, they can bring their classroom learning into practice and understand the ground realities of setting up enterprises,
• Helping students acquire entrepreneurial skills. Grassroots innovations and indigenous knowledge examples can be taken up by the students for setting up their own enterprise and commercializing the innovations
• Identifying the prospective entrepreneurs and mentors for commercializing the technologies.

Interns

NIF BD section invites Interns to help in Market Research, Investment Opportunity Documents and Business Development to spawn grassroots innovations.Interested candidates are requested to write to bd@nifindia.org clearing stating Intern or Volunteer (as the case may be) in the subject line of the email.

Norms for absorbing students as interns/Volunteers at NIF

1. The student should tell whether this is his/her academic requirement.
   • If yes, then the respective institute’s recommendation letter should be sought and their policy guidelines should be observed by NIF.
     • Placement head should send official mail/letter (on official letterhead) from the institute.
     • Student may carry the hard copy of the mail/letter and submit it with NIF on reaching here/place of work.
   • In other cases the student is a volunteer.
2. Student volunteer is also required to submit a recommendation mail/letter (on official letterhead) from a professor of that institute.

Stipend

National Innovation Foundation does not provide any stipend for internship. However in deserving cases, decision lies with competent authority. No lodging or boarding facility is provided by NIF.