The Immunobiology and Regenerative Medicine and Transitional Outcomes research unit of department of zoology, University of Calcutta (CU) in collaboration with BioConsort Consulting and Research LLP, startup incubated under the RUSA 2.0 entrepreneurship hub of CU recently organised a daylong workshop at Acharya Prafulla Chandra Roy Siksha Prangan (Centre for Research) on in nano-science and nanotechnology.
The topic of the seminar was Innovation: Idea to Market. BioConsort is a startup, an end-to-end technology solution provider, with the objective to translate the findings of academic research to revenue generating products, to train the students to make them industry ready and self reliant.
Professor Ena Ray Banerjee, principal investigator of the Immunobiology and Regenerative Medicine Research and Transitional Outcomes Research unit, inaugurated the workshop and spoke about the importance of academic entrepreneurship in today’s age, when the academic job market is saturated and there is a growing need for innovations and new technologies. She highlighted the importance of collaborative research especially among the multidisciplinary faculty of the vast university and the need to go beyond publishing their research work in the high-impact journals.
Dr Shinjini Mitra, director of BioConsort said that this was a much awaited workshop, because the higher education curriculum of the university does not include any course of entrepreneurship, nor is there any ecosystem where enterprise building is encouraged.
The workshop was attended by faculty from the departments of microbiology, environmental science, geography, applied optics and photonics among others.
The registrar of the University of Calcutta and the nodal officer for the RUSA Hub Prof Debashis Das assured to implement relevant policies form smoother running of the hub so that many more startups can originate.