Creating Innovators and Entrepreneurs Since 2006
India produces over 1 million engineers and management graduates every year, but less than a third of them find meaningful employment because of lack of skill development. The India Skills Report, prepared by People Strong, a Human Resources company, and Confederation of Indian Industry, an industry lobby, calls this the Great Indian Talent Conundrum – a challenge that could transport us swiftly from the stage of reaping demographic dividend to facing a demographic disaster. According to the report, India would need 700 million skilled manpower by 2022 to meet the demands of our growing economy.
Developing skills and providing employment is not something that a government or corporate can handle alone. India needs millions of start-ups and people with innovation and making skills.TechTop Charitable Trust, founded by some of India’s noted scientists and innovators with years of experience serving their country,believes that engineers cannot be mere job seekers; they also have to be job givers. We want to recreate a society that can stand on its own feet, and make India the hot bed of global innovation and industry. Our effort, therefore, is to give Indian youth the confidence in their inherent talent and merit to innovate; our events encourage young engineers and innovators to transform themselves from job seekers to job givers.
Our systemic endeavours in rekindling a culture of innovation within the Indian educational system – aiming at developing that spirit from the earliest classes possible –was a revolutionary idea when we first began. Today, this endeavour is recognised by social, intellectual and education authorities as meeting the future needs of children who have access to information, and a choice to learn what they want to learn. This decade-long movement is now reaping results –many universities in the country now promote innovation and “Making” as part of their curriculum. All that was needed were catalysts like TechTop, and similar not-for-profit organisations.