Srinagar, Oct 29: Sher-e-Kashmir University of Agricultural Sciences and Technology of Kashmir has emerged as the No1 institution with the highest number of startups and innovations among all 11 universities of the Union Territory of Jammu and Kashmir at the J&K’s first skill convocation held on Sunday at SKICC.
Lt Governor Manoj Sinha, who presided at J&K’s first Skill Convocation (ITI Convocation), launched the J&K Innovation Hub Portal (www.jkinnovation.in) that provides live input on the number of patents, startups, research, and innovations of the union territory. The portal declares SKUAST-K as the top UT institution with the highest number of patents, innovations, and startups. The LG also felicitated the young entrepreneurs at the occasion.
SKUAST-K has received applause for registering the highest number (62) of innovations, startups and patents from J&K so far.
In the past three years, with the help of the World Bank-ICAR-funded National Agricultural Higher Education Project (NAHEP), SKUAST-K has been able to create an ecosystem in the university for fostering innovation and entrepreneurship. SKUAST-K adopted the Innovation & Startup Policy and NEP-2020, which incentivized innovation and entrepreneurship for both the students and faculty members. The university has been awarded more than 10 BIRAC grants from DBT for its faculty and student startups, has won more than 40 innovation awards, secured 13 patents and has registered 21 startups. At the convocation ceremony, SKUAST-K received praise for achieving the feat in a short span of time.
Vice Chancellor, SKUAST-K, Prof Nazir Ahmad Ganai, credited the faculty, staff and students for their enormous contribution in realising the goal of making innovation the fourth mandate of the farm university, besides agriculture education, research and extension. He congratulated Director Planning & Monitoring Prof Haroon R Naik and Chief Executive Officer SKIIE Centre Naveed Hamid for building an innovative ecosystem and achieving this feat.