1. AWARENESS GENERATION, TRAINING & WORKSHOPS

Comprehensive Entrepreneurship Development Protocol for higher education institutions,: such as Colleges, polytechnics, ITIs, Agri, Vet & other Colleges, as below :

Step1: Entrepreneurship awareness & Business Opportunitiesworkshops in first stage,

Step2: Selection of entreprising and willing students to undergo a EDP & Innovation course in the second stage and

Step3: Organise Business plan preparation camp only for students who are able to cross Step2

Step4: Syndicating finance tieups with banks or VCFs (in case of innovative projects) in the final year for projects approved by financial institutions.

Step5: Incubation &support services (physical & virtual) for launched businesses & scale-ups

Life cycle approach to training for enterpreneurship : by which entrepreneurs will get support for knowledge or facilitation at every point of the life cycle :

Pre-business stage:

· Business opportunities workshops & webinars in sectors relevant to each district with help of Industry associations,DIC and a nodal educational instution

· Business plan preparation camps : for entrepreneurs willing to commence businesses and ready to prepare business plans including access to finance

· Regular EDP training after sanction of loans on how to run business to enable smooth start up

Post Launch stage:

· Post launch workshops for enterpreneurs within 3 months in batches of 30 at district level to assess progress, identify issues and provide support or advisories.

· Post launch business accelaration & scale up courses based on need on various specific topics :

· Workshops for expansion/diversification in various sectors

· Crash courses on key topics of generic nature & sector specific

· E& M-Commerce & Digital Marketing Lab

· Webinars on specific topics in early & mid life stage of enterprises

· Training courses & advisory services for MSMEs to raise funds in the capital markets. (eg. BSE SME Exchange,VCFs, AFs)

· Short certificate courses : on entrepreneurship and innovation ranging from 1 month to 6 month accredited to recognised International or National or regional Bodies for persons interested in acquiring formal certification

2. BUSINESS FACILITATION SERVICES

• Entrepreneurs Clinic / Help Desk :: will provide support and advisories at every stage of the business life cycle using a call centre manned by domain experts @ EDII via chat, telephone and email as well as direct oneon-one interaction @ EDII campus

• Mentorship program – online registration & monitoring : An online State network of high quality willing mentors will be created, from existing entrepreneur networks and successful entrepreneurs in every district.Mentors registering online will be screened and rated based on performance criteria by entrepreneurs.

• Online Learning Portal : in Tamil and English with various self learning modules based on evolving market for those who are unable to attend EDII courses directly, such as those who are employed. (eg. SBA Learing Centre www.sba.gov ). Curriculum will be delivered to all aspiring entrepreneurs at no cost. Leveraging online learning, entrepreneurship courses can be taken as and when needed by students and business people alike through Massively Open Online Courses (MOOCs) in Tamil & English.

• Entrepreneur online network: will provide an online space with various communities for sharing of experience on a regular basis (eg. Empretecos associations). EDII will moderate such discussions with a view to bridging information assymetry.

3. COMMUNICATIONS & ENVIRONMENT BUILDING

• Periodic TV Media programs on entrepreneurs & innovation : to enhance the social status of successful entrepreneurs and attract youth to business as the most sought after career. Building partnerships with TV, electronic and print media to run sponsored and non-sposnored programs on entrepreneurship & innovation.

• Document and circulate successful Entrepreneurship and Innovation videos : to document successes and enable faster spread of the entrepreneurial culture based on sharing of success and failure stories.These documents will be shared through EDII webpages, youtube and used in training classes for motivation

• Global & National Entrepreneurship Week celebrations: across the State highlight entrepreneur achievements, recognise business champions and disseminate experience

• Annual State and District Level awards: for outstanding start-ups & innovations to recognise and motivate innovators and good entrepreneurs

• Communications & Outreach: through weekly E-newsletters & daily Social media (including Twitter, facebook, push SMS (m-SEVA), Whatsapp, etc.) on entrepreneurship and innovation will help document, spread and scale up adoption of best practice

4. INCUBATION

Incubation services, virtual or physical, are known to reduce the failure rates of new born entreprises. Hence EDII will support formation and building capacities of :

· Rural Business Incubators to identify, document, support and harness innovations of grass-roots innovators.

· Tech BIs in engineering, medical and other professional technical institutions. Currently DST funds TBIs in select institutions and this needs to be scaled up.

· Promote Business Incubators in other Institutions running nonprofessional courses ie., arts & science colleges, ITIs, Polytechnics,etc.,

5. INCLUSIVE DEVELOPMENT

• Special target group training programs: will be given to the inclusion of scheduled castes & scheduled tribes, minorities, differently abled, etc.,and regionally under-represented areas including large part of Eastern,Central and and Southern Tamil Nadu in entrepreneurship training programs

• Special mobilization workshops: in such districts and areas to enroll members of these groups in the online entrepreneurial ecosystem will also be conducted.

• Special enrolment program for disadvantaged groups: in incubators and mentorship programs to ensure that support services reach them

• Partnerships & Formation of special support groups: for such disadvantaged entrepreneurs would help them to gain confidence. eg.Dalit Indian Chamber of Commerce & Industry, etc. A pool of experts (e.g retired bankers etc.) with prior experience in handling such groups would be promoted to act as mentors to such disadvantaged entrepreneurs and help them connect to all related services eg. banks, regulatory requirements, writing proposals for funding etc.

• Sensitisation on Inclusive development: through regular sensitisation workshops for key stakeholders like bankers, incubators, trainers, officials, etc., to promote gender neutral incubation/ accelerator, network of mentors, industry, resource centres and credit institutes are developed to facilitate Women and other disadvantaged Entrepreneur groups.

6. FOCUS ON SOCIAL ENTREPRENEURSHIP

· EDII Advisory group on social entrepreneurship : would be setup to enable greater understanding of opportunities and capacity building needs.

· Business opportunity workshops: in social sector would be organised peridocally to promote undertsanding of problems faced by citizens needing solution

· Training programs focused on creation of Social Enterprises even with a modest capital base, through social incubators

· Social enterprises window within EDII portal: to showcase and encourage grass-root innovations and assist innovators to commercialise and up-scale their products and services.

· Partnerships with organisations: such as the National Innovation Foundation to encourage innovation, collaborate with organisations to encourage grassroots technological innovation and integrate with the national research and innovation ecosystem.

7. TRAINING QUALITY IMPROVEMENT

· Develop & disseminate training content: such as trainer handbooks,training videos, case studies for entrepreneurship and innovation

· Organise regular entrepreneur trainers training programs : to standardise and strengthen trainer capacity and enable. This would enable improving the quality of training offered by trainers and introduce better training methodologies in programs of EDII.

· Annual evaluation of EDII PIAs & Training programs: would be conducted to ensure that PIAs maintain standards and Training programs deliver the outcomes expected.

8. ECOSYSTEM IMPROVEMENT

· Entrepreneurship Promotion & facilitation training workshops: would be organised every year by EDII for GM DICs, SIDCO, TIIC, TAHDCO, TABCEDO,Cooperative banks (SCA for NHFDC), SIPCOT, CT, TANGEDCO officials to enable improvment of the support environemnt for entrepreneurs.

· Ease of Doing Business' workshops : would be organised every year for MSMEs in collaboration with IC&DIC for documenting problems and issues faced by MSMEs and recommend policy responses to the Government.

· Improve access to Finance: through Annual stakeholder workshops (Govt agencies like SLBC, TIIC, TNCDW, TAHDCO, TNSCB, Angel funds, VCFs,etc.) to enhance understanding of problems in startup financing and make recomendations to Government.

9. MAINSTREAMING ENTREPRENEURSHIP EDUCATION

· Training of trainers workshops for College and School Nodal Faculty : would be organised every year for all engineering, arts and science,agriculture, vet, fisheries, medical colleges and other colleges,polytechnics, ITIs will be provided with additional support for re-training of existing faculty to run EACs, establish EDCs to deliver and support entrepreneurship courses and set up BIs to promote and incubate businesses by students of all courses.

· Embedding Entrepreneurship education : in formal institutions of learning by working with Universities and Directorate of School Education (example: Europe http://www.tesguide.eu & http://theentrepreneurialschool.eu/) to introduce electives,entrepreneurship activities, visits to businesses, interaction with successful businessmen and women for school students in secondary school and students of arts and science colleges, engineering, medical,agriculture, veterinary, fishery colleges, ITIs, polytechnics & all other categories of colleges. Students of all faculties will be able to choose entrepreneurship courses to suit their needs, and Universities will be encouraged to award credits for entrepreneurship courses. Curricular inputs in colleges and schools & advocate entrepreneurship courses for all streams, programmes and chairs at higher education institutions and universities would be jointly reviewed.

· Motivate universities and academic institutions to launch an elective course on Social Entrepreneurship, including through online distance education, to actively promote social entrepreneurship in the country.

· Institute-Business Interaction : would be promoted in Arts & Science colleges and other educational institutions by creating the forum of EDCs to enable teachers to engage with the private sector and with entrepreneurs and support initiatives that bring entrepreneurs to educational establishments for interaction with students and become mentors for student promoted businesses.

· Business case challenge & Social entrepreneurship competitions: would be promoted in colleges & polytechnics (eg. ENACTUS :http://enactus.org/what-we-do/project-stories/, CII Innovation http://www.ciiinnovation.in )

· Online business games/challenge Portal for students: would be set up to engage a larger number of students in preparedness for enterprise activities (eg. Desafio SEBRAE in Brazil :: www.desafio.sebrae.com.br )

10. COLLABORATIONS & PARTNERSHIPS ON ED & INNOVATION

· State Entrepreneurship & Innovation Council: with participation of Industry, Academia, non-profits & Government agencies for recommending policy measures on ED&I with Hon MInister for MSMED as Chairman & ACS,MSMED as Vice Chairman can help in dynamically refocussing Entrepreneurship and Innovation policy framework from time to time based based on evolving market.

· ED&I Advisory Committee : within EDII headed by Director EDII and comprising of Government agencies, industry associations, academia and research agencies for updating ED&I capacity building programs and suggesting chnages

· State Incubators Association: may be established to help in standardising support extended by incubators and help spread best practice. This network will also feed in to the online platform connecting the entrepreneurial ecosystem. Industry will also be encouraged to support aspiring entrepreneurs within its sector through appropriate incubation support.

· Feedback workshops for entrepreneurs: will be organised every year to enable entrepreneurs (past trainees) to suggest changes to training programs & support provided by EDII based on their experience and changing requirements and enable design of client centric programs.

· Partnerships & MOUs with reputed non-profits/institutions like EDIII, etc.working in similar space etc. for enhancing quality of facilitation

· Support Entrepreneurship training in all industrial clusters across the State: using CFCs & COEs established by SIDCO under the National Cluster development Program and proposed Entrepreneurship Hubs (E-Hubs) (under the MSDE Policy 2015) set up in each industrial cluster to enable existing and potential entrepreneurs in collaboration with industry associations or academic institutions for scale ups and startups.

11. SUPPORT FOR INNOVATION

· EDII as Nodal Innovation Centre: EDII will be designated by P&D department nodal State institution for capacity building, documenting,researching and promoting Innovation in Tamil Nadu

· Startup Mission in Manufacturing: would be established in EDII with focus on facilitation & capacity building for innovation.

· Centres for Manufacturing Innovation : would be setup up as a PPP project with five reputed engineering schools to enable enterpreneurs to design and market innovative products and services by MSMEs in Solar power,Wind power, Sustainable Environment, Sustainable Transportation and Smart cities

· Recognising Innovation: Annual Innovators conference to schowcase innovative designs and Awards for Innovative Products & Services in MSME sector would be organised in collaboration with NIF and reputed educational institutions.

· IPR campaign: Workshops would be organised peridocially to enable MSMEs to understand how to benefit from IPR and ways to protect IPR. EDi will encourage innovators, universities and institutions to patent innovative entrepreneurship ideas and technologies by promoting and strengthening Intellectual Property Rights.

· Innovative Products and Services Online Marketplace: would be designed and moderated by EDII to showcase MSME innovations and promote their marketing while ensuring IPR

· Ideation, Product Innovation Conferences (TEDx type): would be organised periodically at EDII to feature, recognise and document innovative ideas and product launches.

12. RESEARCH & DOCUMENTATION

· Annual Enterprise sample survey on State of Micro enterprises & Entrepreneurship in TN: on the same lines of World Bank Annual surveys(www.enterprisesurveys.org) which would be a firm-level survey of a representative sample of an economy’s private sector covering a broad range of business environment topics including access to finance,corruption, infrastructure, crime, competition, and performance measures.This would help feed into policy based on survey results.

· EDII Entrepreneurship & Innovation Research Council: would be formed with Director EDII as Chair with Academia and Industry to carry out planned investigation & research and organise yearly research conferences as a means of evaluating policy and measuring progress

13. INFRASTRUCTURE DEVELOPMENT

· Expand Tech BIs incubators: in specific verticals within Central Technical Institutions such as CLRI, IIIT-DM, CVRDE, CECRI, SERC, etc., and BIs in IIM Trichy, Central University in Thiruvarur, TN Maritime University and National Research centres such as NCRB, NPRC, CMFRI, etc., by motivating these institutions to setup TBIs. The State Government will also motivate leading medical colleges, TNAU, TNFU, TNVASU, etc., to setup specialised TBIs to carry out research and incubate technology innovations into profitable businesses.

· EDII Innovation Centre: will be set up with an auditorium and conference rooms may be set up to act as a exposition centre for innovative ideas through periodic conferences, workshops, etc.

· Infrastructure development in EDII : High quality roads, pavements streetlights, waste management in SIDCO IE through Corporation of Chennai, especially leading to EDII

14. HUMAN RESOURCES DEVELOPMENT

· EDII Organisation Structure: will be would be restructured based on revised Vision, Mission to enable it to support a variety of new functions such as innovatiion promotion, incubation, institutional development, etc.Horizontal contract appointments to EDII from industry would be enabled to infuse talent into enterpreneurship development and innovation. Horizontal talent drawal from Government agencies & academia for EDII would also be resorted to. Market pay for certian positions such as startup mission would be allowed to ensure the best possible talent.

15. RECOMMEND POLICY CHANGES

· MSMED Single Window Portal (Small Biz Online of Korea,www.eregulations.org ) : To support young entrepreneurs, a web and mobile based platform connecting the entire entrepreneurial ecosystem will be established. Regulatory agencies, students, young entrepreneurs, mentors, incubators, funding agencies and basic service providers will all be able to log in and connect to each other in their respective industries and locations, apply online and obtain clearances, sanctions online.

· State Startup Policy : would be drafted and released as part of the MSME Policy.

· Policies and stratgies for Integration of MSMEs in Large industry value chains need to figure as part of the MSME policy.

· Institutional Reforms in Universities: to make them hubs for research and innovation.