VTU Launches ‘She Innovates’ to Train 4,000 Women Engineering Students in Entrepreneurship

Visvesvaraya Technological University (VTU) has rolled out 'She Innovates' as a decisive step to encourage women-led innovations. It is a women-oriented entrepreneur training programme for female engineering students in the second last year from the colleges affiliated to the university. The training programme was first launched as part of the Visvesvaraya Research and Innovation Foundation (VRIF) and is expected to university train 4,000 students, with around 100 of them finally selected start-ups launching Nearly 3,400 students have registered, but the number of participants from each college has been capped at 80. Students will be

engaged in a 3-months intensive training program, which will be conducted by a group of corporate and institutional partners including Wipro, UN Women, Karnataka Digital Economy Mission, and various TiE chapters from Hubballi Bengaluru Mangaluru, and Mysuru, who will guide them on skills building through entrepreneurial activities, industry exposure, and last, but not the least, solving issues pertaining to the community through problem-solving. After the training, the participants will be challenged through a hackathon, during which they would be asked to come up with solutions to the problems as they identify in rural locations. According to the officials of the university, the activity can be seen as a final-year internship combining theoretical learning with practical innovation.

Santosh Ittanagi, who leads doing and operations at VRIF, stated the programme targets students truly dedicated to starting businesses. The goal is to select 100 individuals ready to take risks and create new projects. Entrepreneurship involves uncertainty, so families will be involved to help students get needed backing. He emphasized that student support is a key part of the process.

VTU Vice-Chancellor S Vidyashankar pointed out that about half of the universitys 80,000 students each year are women. The push seeks to identify their talent and offer them advantage in engineering projects. Rural students will receive extra attention during the selection. He said this helps level the playing field.

The event also includes a message about job readiness. At a meeting with IEEE, the VC stressed education should match real-world job demands. As jobs are available, there isnt enough talent trained for actual workplace needs. This programme aims to change that.

Through She Innovates, VTU wants women engineers to go from looking for jobs to creating them. The effort supports India's