Odisha To Include Entrepreneurship In School Curriculum

The Odisha government has proposed to include entrepreneurship in school curriculum. Odisha Chief Minister Naveen Patnaik said this while inaugurating O-hub, a flagship initiative of the government to support startup formation and subsequent scale-up, here on Saturday.

The State has proposed in the new draft startup policy 2021 to reach out to the young minds in school by adding entrepreneurship as a part of the school curriculum, he said.

The Chief Minister said that startup movement in Odisha is growing every day and Startup Odisha has been a catalyst to this movement, driving them by energy, enterprise & innovation. He further said that the narrative of Odisha is changing & progressing towards a new world of ideas, innovations & a budding entrepreneurial community.

O-hub, the state supported incubation hub, is located in the Special Economic Zone, Patia Bhubaneswar & offers 1,50,000 square feet area with state-of-the art facility, plug-n-play infrastructure to support startup activities within the state. This initiative would provide a platform for innovators and entrepreneurs to develop products or services, establish formal businesses and interact with stakeholders of the ecosystem.

Inaugurating this world class incubation centre, Patnaik said that O-Hub will be the first point to identify the best in the industry for co-creation & development of business with their new ideas and it will be a conglomerate for business houses & innovation. He said that now the innovators, mentors, corporate partners, ecosystem enablers & facilitators -- all of them will work under one roof.

Startups being the agents of economic freedom, ideas and innovation, the CM added that O-hub will facilitate 200 startups every year in diverse sectors like healthcare, renewable energy, ICT, artificial intelligence, machine learning, augmented reality/virtual reality, internet of things, handlooms and handicrafts, agri-tech and many more.

Expressing happiness over creation of more than 1200 startups so far under Odisha Startup Policy 2016 that have generated 10,000 employments in the state, Patnaik expressed confidence that the state will achieve the goal of 5,000 startups by 2025.

O-hub will be a propellant to foster a spirit of entrepreneurship by providing end-to-end assistance to a startup during their journey, he added.