Faculty Development Program (FDP) on Entrepreneurship and Innovation

From 29.09.2022 to 01.10.22 (3 Days) FDP Program for the faculties of Tirunelveli zone was organized on the title “Entrepreneurship and Innovation”. The program was arranged by EDC and IIC of FXEC in association with AURCT-IEDP HUB @ Anna University Regional Campus, Tirunelveli. Er. Vishal Nair, M.Tech, Co-Founder and Director, LightNsalt Pvt. Ltd, Palakkad, Kerala from 09.00 AM – 04.00 PM on all the three days. The FDP started with the welcome address by Dr. Lourdes Poobala Rayen, IIC President and Director of EDC. Keynote address was given by Mr.Siva Baarathi, Field Coordinator, AURCT-IEDP Hub, Tirunelveli

Er. Vishal Nair speaker created an awareness about entrepreneurship in the morning session by explaining the need to choose entrepreneurship as the career choice by the graduated students. He cited lot of examples of successful Indian entrepreneurs and in the afternoon session speaker explained the importance of Innovation and product development. The guest speaker explained about the entrepreneurial journey of Deepinder Goyal the founder of Zomato and he explained the difference between invention and innovation. While explaining the need for innovation to sustain the business venture, he explained the successful innovations introduced by the recently started startups.

The Day 2 Started with questioning and answering session in the title Need for Innovation and where the innovation can be used successfully. The speaker said that the innovation should be introduced where ever possible in the business operations. The speaker gave few exercises to the participants to explore the opportunities. Number of case studies were discussed to make the participants understand the need for innovation.

Day 3 started with the hand on session for applying IEDP Voucher program. The guest speaker asks the participants to apply the IEDP Voucher and cleared all the doubts about the voucher program which provides financial grant to the innovators to develop the commercially viable product. In the afternoon the participants were taken to the incubation centres where they interacted with the professors doing the mentoring process for the development of the innovative products. The participants visited few product development centres such as Robotics and Automation Incubation Center, Ideation Incubation Center and Innovation and Product Development Center.

The three days FDP came to an end with the valedictory function wherein the participants gave their feedback. As the three days sessions were very much interactive and useful to all the participants, most of the feedbacks were very much positive and all the participants assured of their support to impart whatever they have learned in the FDP to the students and motivate them to choose the entrepreneurship as their career option. The valedictory address was given by Smt.G.Jerina Bubby, Assistant Director, Br.MSME DFO, Tirunelveli wherein the guest speaker gave the funding assistances provided by the Central Govt through MSME. 42 faculty members from various Engineering and Arts and science colleges participated and benefitted out of this program.