Several studies have established the endogenous relationship between entrepreneurship and growth. Entrepreneurs provide the steam that drives the economic growth. Entrepreneurship development is the process of increasing the supply of capable entrepreneurs within the economy. The objectives of entrepreneurship development programmes are to increase the pool of people who have the career orientation, motivation, desire opportunity, and ability to start their own businesses and to improve their chances for survival and growth. The ultimate outcome is new venture creation and job generation.

Schumpter's economic theory brought to life by empirical research in the 1970s and 1980s, shows how capitalist economies can achieve economic growth and development through public policies that promote and development through public policies that promote entrepreneurship. Recognising the truth that the entrepreneur is at the core of what makes an enterprise, the post-Independence period capitalised on the concept of entrepreneurship to address the country's immediate concerns of poverty alleviation and employment generation.

It may be pertinent to note that entrepreneurship needed of large and medium concerns hardly springs from Government initiatives. This is not to understate the importance of national priorities or the country's achievements. The country did pull off but perhaps it was not enough. Notwithstanding the slow pace of industrial entrepreneurship, agriculture and services sectors witnessed a boom in private initiatives. A flourishing entrepreneurship led to phenomenal growth prospects in these sectors. They involved the least Government interventions.

Under these circumstances, one can no longer regard entrepreneurship merely as a fusion of talent, ideas, capital, know-how, commitment and perseverance to create/build from practically nothing. The conventional concept can hardly succeed in the present scenario. Entrepreneurship in the new millennium has to necessarily encompass the entire economic, social and political milieu.

At the dawn of the new millennium certain discernible trends seem to have crystalised, which permeate every aspect of our life, technology, environment, political and economic ideologies, our basic human values. The future in entrepreneurial leadership and management of both small/ancillary and large corporate culture would in all probability belong to knowledge-based enterprises, besides genetic engineering, consumer electronics, superconductors, bionics, nanotechnology and what not. The existing enterprises themselves need to metamorphose/restructure for survival in the new millennium. This calls for a totally new facet of entrepreneurship.

In such a fast changing scenario, the present pattern of EDPs appears to be rather outdated, anachronistic, inadequate and even appropriate. It does not perhaps suit the present complex business environment. There is a need to analyse the status and modules of EDPs. The EDPs need to be thoroughly restructured in terms of adequacy, appropriateness of content and module, approaches and methodology, certainly not forgetting the nature of emerging enterprises.

Precisely to tackle and overcome these and other concerns it was felt most appropriate to organise this Conference at this juncture.

Wish you all a happy & prosperous new year.

In fact, it come out both from the panelists and participants that SMEs are both uninformed and participants that SMEs are both uninformed and ill-informed about IPR. Several new provisions in the existing laws as well as new legislations have come into effect have come into effect in the recent past due to gliobalisation efforts. Some of these are: Patents (amendments) Act 1999 paving the way for product patenting and Exclusive Marketing Rights (EMRs), Information Technology Act, 2000 popularly known as cyberlaws, protection of plant varieties and farmers rights act, 2000, Geographical Indications of Goods (Registration and Protection) Act, 1999. The spate of new laws and their provisions have significant implications for SMEs.

During the discussions two extreme views emerged. One school which felt that the new regime for Patents & Trade Marks is hurting the small scale industries and the other which believed that it is in the interests of Indian industry that we accept these as certainties and keep ourselves in readiness to face any eventualities and further convert such challenges into opportunities. One important aspect outlined in the seminar was that while amending/enacting the relevant laws to meet with the international obligations, government has taken adequate safeguards for the domestic enterprises.

Such polarities are bound to exist with contentious issues like this. Drawing inspiration from the Seminar, we have decided to do our bit in this regard. We have decided to strengthen our SENDOC by creating a ehelp linei which will provide information on issues like patents & trade marks, government policies like patents & trade marks, government policies and similar worries that the industry faces. This helpline can also be accessed through internet and those who have questions can get answers on line. It is also decided to arrange more such interaction sessions in small groups and also some training programmes for the industry on these topics. India is the world's largest democracy with the fastest growing middle class and first class educational system. As the mind expands and the world shrinks the strategic role of intellectual property protection in India will continue to rise at an ever increasing rate in the global market place.

Women produce 50 per cent of the world's food supply, account for 60 per cent working force and contribute up to 30- per cent of official labour force, but receive only 10 per cent of the world's income and surprisingly own less than one per cent of world's real estate. Although today there is a wider recognition of the importance of women in the process of development, the prevailing nature of interventions towards them is welfare-oriented rather than income-generating. The Income-generating projects, in contrast, try to create a situation that helps women support themselves and their families without welfare. Women empowerment is seen by various development actors in its multiple interpretations and its association with a diversity of strategies. Economic development is seen by many as one of the solutions of empowering women. Providing economic opportunities for women to improve their incomes is therefore a critical strategy for reduction of disparities. Policy changes are being made and investments in women's programmes across all sectors is increasing to provide women with greater access to opportunities. nisiet is primarily concerned with strengthening women's economic capacity as entrepreneurs and producers. Some of the nisiet's interventions include upgrade existing skills or teaching new ones, providing knowledge about the resources needed to use the skills in the production of marketable goods and services.

According to United Nations Research Institute for Social Development, the small-scale sector is seen as a very dynamic and hitherto neglected sector of the economy. In addition, because of the predominance of poorer entrepreneurs and labour-intensive techniques it is seen as an important way of addressing the problem of poverty. Micro-enterprise development is seen as a particularly important development intervention for women because of their existing high levels of participation in the small-scale sector. Some authors have seen micro-enterprises as having particular advantages for women: their flexibility and location in or near women's homes, ease of entry and links with local markets." The rising awareness levels even among vulnerable sections of the society about their constitutional and statutory rights is a new dynamic. The success of experiments like self-help groups and DWCRA clearly manifest the "trickle down" effects of entrepreneurship on wider poverty alleviation and gender inequality through the expansion of female employment and stimulation of the local economy. Empowerment of women through enterprise development is the guiding philosophy of nisiet's women's studies cell and this will continue to be the rallying point in all the endeavours of nisiet.

The Government of India has taken several initiatives through the Ministry of Heavy Industries and Public Enterprises, which has addressed this burning issue and identified several nodal agencies in different states for counselling, training and redeploying the employees who have opted out of service under voluntary retirement scheme in central public sector undertakings.

A separate scheme was also introduced in 1990s under National Renewal Fund for retraining and redeploying the rationalized employees of private and public sectors and also state undertakings. nisiet, since 1998, has been in the forefront offering escort services to such rationalized employees through its employee assistance cell. The Institute has acquired rare expertise in this area through its experience of conducting management development and entrepreneurship development programmes over several decades. nisiet has developed a model tailored to diverting their energies to income generation activities. The emphasis is on dovetailing individual skills, with terminal benefits and latent spatial needs.

Rationalized employees, generally tend to succumb to withdrawal syndrome. Therefore through a process of unfreezing, the employee is motivated to pursue self-employment avenues leading to a creative, independent and self-sustaining role. nisiet rehabilitation programmes in this direction have come up with encouraging results with more than 65 per cent of the trainees starting up their units. Institutions from different parts of the country are now approaching nisiet to study of the country are now approaching nisiet's support to organise similar programmes in other destinations.

We have a dedicated team committed to this task. This is a clear manifestation of how an opportunity has been exploited by the Institute to provide gainful solutions through a very critical human resource development programme. The Institute, through its employee assistance cell, is serving the rationalised workers, the Industries Departments of both Centre and States, and finally the nation.

For many years NGOs, voluntary agencies, different bodies and associations have been playing a pivotal role in the developmental process. So significant is their role that their contributions run parallel to that of Government. The increasing role of these institutions demands highly innovative and risk taking competencies to measure up to the nature of tasks that they handle. To further unleash these forces and to unravel their latent urge to service, there is a need to give fillip to "social entrepreneurship" concept.

For quite some time now, nisiet has been hobnobbing with such institutions who are making significant contribution to the social sector through their entrepreneurial drive. With many institutions and individuals entering the fray, it is important that proper training modules are developed to impart them necessary skills and to empower them to face challenges in handling diverse situations and sensitive groups. It is also important that such institutions are trained to discover inherent talents of the target groups with sympathy and understanding of their unique problems. A great deal of work is going on at nisiet in giving fillip to the social entrepreneurship model to enable the agents of change to maximize their efforts and benefit the society at large.

Social Entrepreneurship - a stimulus for homogeneous development.

Human security forms the bedrock of development. Various issues of development derive their sustenance from human security. When security is not guaranteed everything else loses its import. It is quintessential to preserve the values of sanathana dharma for the well-being of one and all, at the same time ensuring that the pursuits of advancement are in line with the cherished values. The malaise of never ending social inequalities has its root in the appropriation of resources by few. Whether it is poverty eradication, employment generation, routing out hunger or environmental conservation, they all emanate from the single soulmate that is human security.

The understanding that all those born have a right to survival and those that exist need quality of life guaranteed by the governance systems, is a refrain of most of the nations today. In this endeavour one needs to recognise the role of the individual. One must make a clear distinction between being and function, as pointed out by one of the thinkers of our present times. Being is inalienable and universal while function is alienable and limited. One may cease from function but not from being. The crisis of the day is mainly linked to this inability to see them separately. This is an important realization essential for one’ s co-existence with the others.

"A new paradigm of development is progressively emerging. It is now recognized that markets can have major failures and growth alone is not enough and can even be destructive of the natural environment and of social and cultural goods. Only the pursuit of high-quality growth is worth the effort, growth that has the human person at the centre. A second key feature is the convergence between respect for ethical values and the search for economic efficiency and market competition", observed Michael Camdessus, MD of the IMF.

That strong and enduring association between the universities and the industrial establishments is essential for development has long been recognised all over the world. The advantages to both universities and production sector of working closely together are obvious. Whatever cooperation exists between the two sides in this country is minimal and not at all enough.

Entrepreneurship development today has acquired special significance because of the country’s objectives of growth and employment generation through small enterprise development. A climate for stimulating innovation and facilitating meaningful technology transfer for enterprise creation can be achieved through a change in cultural attitudes and by a systems approach to build linkages between universities and industry. Education, training and research must be geared to relevance, competence, and excellence, to fostering entrepreneurship and development.

Educational institutions should be seedbeds for technology innovation and raise technology entrepreneurs to set up knowledge-based industries. University-industry partnership in training, expertise transfer, innovation and development have a strong potential to foster sustainable development: they hold the key to economic growth.

By the year 2025, about 83 percent of the expected global population of 8.5 billion will be living in developing countries. Yet the capacity of available resources and technologies to satisfy the demands of this growing population for food and other agricultural commodities remains uncertain.

There are 841 million hungry people in the world today, which means one person in every five is hungry. About 1.3 billion people live on just one dollar per day, 23 percent of the world population cannot afford even a single meal in a day.

Can biotechnology help fight world hunger? The answer is "yes", for a variety of reasons. Assisting the environmental impact of farming, providing better nutrition and fighting the curse of malnutrition, helping feed a rapidly growing world population, promoting market competitiveness, promoting crop diversification and many more are the various solutions to fight world hunger.

Scientists believe that biotech could raise overall crop productivity in developing countries by as much as 25 percent and help prevent the loss of crops after harvest. The excitement that spread after the disclosure of the human genome project reached every man concerned about global problems.

The technology developed for the genome project finds tremendous applications in agriculture. Biotechnology can be used to enhance nutritional content of crops such as proteins, vitamins, minerals and antioxidants, and remove anti-nutrients, allergens and toxins.

Yield is also an issue in developing countries. By engineering the metabolic pathways, productivity can be increased by bypassing the physiological barriers that cannot be addressed through traditional crop breeding techniques. Likewise, synthetic fertilizers pose a difficult problem in developing countries because they are not available to resource-poor farmers. Rice can be colonised by good bacteria that fixes nitrogen from the atmosphere thus eliminating dependency on synthetic fertilisers.

In light of the growing disparities within specific poor societies or between developed and developing countries, the dwindling competitiveness of many poor countries and the ongoing loss of biological diversity, serious heed must be paid to these concerns. Global sustainable development cannot be achieved in the face of growing social disparity and a shrinking ecological foundation.

Girijan Cooperative Corporation (GCC) in Andhra Pradesh was created more than 4 decades back. It did serve its client group, that is the tribals, very well, but over a period of time there crept a feeling among the employees of the Corporation that they are the benefactors and therefore are immune to the sensitivity of the beneficiaries, the tribals, serviced by them. Their approach to their business has not changed with the times. This is not pecular to them, however.

Sometimes even the best and most respected firms find themselves suffering from large or small problems, due to flawed or antiquated processes or management styles. What does an institution do when suddenly there is a cry for change and the organisationís resources are under strain? One answer could be to reform the personnel practices and systems to activate "human resource development," the source for the creation of new value, and to provide a high level of motivation to individual employees. More specifically, capacitybuilding systems and opportunities must be created within the organisation, which employees can utilize on their own initiative to develop new capabilities. If a company's employees have not been currently serving the clientele properly, then perhaps bringing in new concepts for customer orientation, better customer contacts and better business style could help the company retool their methodologies to service valuable customers hit her to neglected.

The organisation I have in mind is Girijan Cooperative Corporation. I was quite impressed with the changes brought about in GCC and the initiatives taken to revamp the system. A number of programmes have been planned for the employees and persuaded them to see the need to change their thinking and approach to the way they have been servicing their customers. In this connection, nisiet was asked to undertake motivational training and thus had an opportunity recently to interact with the employees undergoing training. The feedback made some interesting revelations. It was heartening to know that most of the employees who initially felt such trainings to be redundant started admiring the initiatives, so much so that now these same trainees are coming up with innovative solutions to improve their services and turn around their business operations. It has been felt that all the 853 DR depots in the Corporation's 12 divisions should become profit centres which would in turn enable the 45 Girijan Primary Cooperative Marketing Societies (GPCMSs) to function as self-supporting small enterprises. The corporation has been responding enthusiastically so far in every way.

The first and foremost requirement for the restructuring of an organisation is the re-establishment of corporate vitality. This requires an endeavour to raise the standards of corporate ethics and to establish good corporate governance. The implementation of structural reform must be preceded by adequate discussion to create opinion and general awareness. More than anything else, it is important to promote "qualitative" reforms so that a surgical knife can be administered to the current system of dependence on government for grants. This dependence has become totally rigid and is inextricably linked with the problem of growing organisational ills. The remedy is to breaking free from the conservative thinking and timidity of the system. Changing the mindset of the employees in such organisations is a mammoth task. There are some who take up the challenges of making previously flawed institutions into tomorrowís highly successful, profitable and progressive ones with an uncanny ability to fix the organisation's long standing problems and enjoy being the change agents. Successful change agents intervene in an organisation at a time when it is necessary to link the transition to a more productive and successful future.

I am sure GCC will not fail to accomplish these dreams as it is not lacking in strong leadership and commitment at the helm.

Small Industries Development Organisation (SIDO) has been in existence for almost four decades and has been providing an array of services to small industries. In fact, nisiet was established in the first place as a staff training institute for SIDO. But over a period of time organisations have to inevitably review their objectives and rewrite them to absorb the shocks of changing trends. They have to undergo a functional transformation in order to sustain and be useful. Over the past few years we at nisiet have been trying to grapple with a similar hallenge. What I am trying to stress is, it is imperative that we coordinate our functions around the axis of change. The significant factor here is transformation: to transform in tune with the trend of time. This is not mere platitude. I speak from my own experience.

The requirements of industry have undergone a sea change during the four decades since the setting up of SIDO. Technology has revolutionised the way industry functions, progresses and proliferates. Competition, open markets and globalisation are the other vital phenomena which need no special reiteration. In order not to lose its ground, SIDO has to now cast its services in a new frame and give them new dimension and direction to meet the changing needs thrown up by the changing times. It is a matter of concern, and rightly. There has been a great deal of thinking at the higher echelons of Union Government to convert the chapters of SIDO into Technology Resource Centers. The idea is to convert the present set of services into technology related services. It is going to be a massive exercise. The Orientation Programme on Transforming SIDO into Technology Resource Centre, recently conducted at nisiet, was SIDO's first step in this direction. The programme, attended by senior officials of SIDO and representatives of SISIs, has been successful in providing some useful insights into the kind of strategies and initiatives needed to accomplish this task.

I firmly believe that SIDO can play a significant role in the new economy by providing the complete range of tools to small industries to understand technology on the one hand, and to empower them to use technology effectively on the other. SIDO can make its services meaningful and relevant by becoming a change agent in the scenario of a globally competitive, technology driven industry. Even as the Orientation Programme revived the long standing association between SIDO and nisiet, I can say with happiness that nisiet will be with SIDO in the mega transformation into Technology Resource Centre.

This fact occurred to me with startling clarity while presiding over the valedictory of a four-month old diploma program recently. These young career seekers had invested their time and money to get a certificate or a diploma. It is incumbent upon the service provider to enable the recipient to cherish it as worth while.

When investments are made in human capital through training, it is imperative that we evolve systems to keep track of the career path of such trainees and maintain a lasting link, long after they had left the institution. One of the challenges facing the institutions offering short-term programmes perhaps is identifying such a subterranean link. The world today is reeling under the impact of economic slowdown. The dotcom bust has affected the student community the most. With fewer jobs and an unpredictable future, students are turning to organisations like nisiet for their skill enhancement and tips on career development.

nisiet, with the entrepreneur at the center of its endeavours, offers a large number of short-term job oriented courses. These courses prepare the students to confidently step into the tough and trying world outside. However there is a catch here. The organisation, sans feedback and monitoring facility cannot keep track of the students after they step out of its fold. It is in no position to gather whether the students are profitably implementing their newly learned skills.

I see that there is an urgent need for a system that would enable us, not only to impart new skills but also ensure that they make use of these skills for their career enhancement and betterment. One way of keeping track of the career progression of students could be by establishing a career counseling and monitoring cell within nisiet. By keeping track of the growth curve of the trainees, organisations like nisiet can demonstrate their concern for an enduring relationship with their client community.

Infrastructure, accommodation and development - these are as relevant to training and education as to industry and business. I am, of course, referring to the Employee Assistance Cell at nisiet, which has been working with tireless enthusiasm to rehabilitate and re-establish rationalized workers in gainful vocations. We have been featuring the EAC activities regularly in these columns.

The functioning of EAC at nisiet started in a modest way with the usual hiccups a new project may be expected to endure. nisiet's EAC not only endured them but also grew stronger and wiser, learning from the difficulties, converting them to plus points. As the activities of the EAC expanded, the need for an exclusive building to house the EAC has come to be felt rather strongly. "Prerana" is the actualization of that need.

The fulfillment of a basic infrastructural need is, however, not a moment to sit back complacently and relax. Exclusive premises means enhanced responsibility, it means more efficiently organised activities, it means more prescient coordination of the programmes and services. It means bettering one's best in every respect. I have faith in the competence and commitment of my colleagues whose accomplishment has been commendable so far.

"Prerana" is not a mere building. It is an inspiration taken shape. It will breathe new inspiration into the activities of nisiet's EAC, which will be housed in it now onwards. I wish my colleagues of EAC complete success in their future endeavours and hope "Prerana" will add a new dimension to the EAC activities.

C-CIT looks into the whole gamut of IT requirements suitable to enterprises especially of small size. It could be through training or software development of e-solutions. It focuses its attention on enterprises by offering them related and needed customised software solutions. 

But software development is not the only primary concern of the centre. C-CIT offers short-term programmes in Client Server Applications, Embedded Systems, PC Hardware and Networking, VLSI Technologies, Bioinformatics, Customer Care Service; Certificate programmes in Video Modeling and Animation, Graphic Arts and Web Design; Diploma programmes in Digital Graphic Arts and Animation, Fashion Design Technology and Management, Interior and Landscape Design.

The Centre schedules regularly a number of long-term programmes leading to Post-Graduate Diplomas in Computer Applications, Software Engineering, and Information Technology, which establish it as a knowledge-hive to those on the look out for IT-related knowledge acquisition. And that includes the in-house requisants.

Biotechnology along with Information Technology is going to be the major thrust area in this millennium, and world over there is a growing realisation of this. We have concretised our plans to enter into training areas related to biotechnology and having relevance to enterprise development, as this segment holds tremendous growth potential. It will be our new thrust area. With this awareness we are now introducing measures to strengthen our training programmes in these convergence areas.

Bio-Informatics is a newly emerging interdisciplinary research area, which may be defined as the interface between biological and computational sciences. It is a systematic development and application of Information Technology and data mining techniques for analysing data obtained by experiments, modeling, database searching, and instrumentation to acquire new perceptions about biological processes. One of C-CIT's recent interventions was in Bio-Informatics. Though we had initial hiccups in coping with this new area of training remote to our established expertise, we came out successful in the last run. It redoubled our confidence to face such challenging situations. Once again we established beyond doubt that wherever enterprise devel

I wish you all a happy and prosperous New Year 2002