Thiruvananthapuram, Jun 20 (PTI) Talent of youngsters, who prefer going abroad after learning ample skills, should be tapped and their innovations properly leveraged for the prosperity of Kerala's economy, State Minister for Higher Education Dr. R Bindu said on Monday.

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The Minister said the State government was ready to provide full support to skill-training programmes, according to a release issued by the Kerala Startup Mission (KSUM).

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She was of the view that apart from classroom activities, it was vital to conceive skill development programmes for students to kindle their creativity, the release said.

The Minister was speaking at the felicitation ceremony organised by the KSUM to honour the winners of Idea Fest 2021 on Technopark campus here, it said.

At the event, she said entrepreneurship of students should be fostered by providing timely guidance and practical knowledge as it can effectively address the unemployment problem, according to the release.

It quoted her as saying that "through their innovative ideas and enterprises, students can also effectively contribute to Kerala's efforts to become a knowledge economy.”

Idea Fest 2021 is an initiative of KSUM to identify student innovators and techno-entrepreneurs from campuses through its IEDC (Innovation and Entrepreneurship Development Centre) scheme.

A flagship initiative of KSUM, it seeks to promote innovation and entrepreneurship among students and academic fraternity in the educational institutions across the State.

Teams with 68 ideas selected from a total of 681 ideas were felicitated at the function where the IEDC accreditation was also given away to eight colleges based on their performance from April 1, 2019 to March 31, 2021, the release said.

KSUM, the nodal agency of the Kerala government for entrepreneurship development and incubation activities in the State, has a network of 341 mini-incubators, called IEDCs, on campuses.

Launched in 2014, IEDC aims also at promoting entrepreneurial culture in educational institutions and developing institutional mechanisms to foster techno-entrepreneurs, the release said.

(The above story is verified and authored by Press Trust of India (PTI) staff. PTI, India’s premier news agency, employs more than 400 journalists and 500 stringers to cover almost every district and small town in India.. The views appearing in the above post do not reflect the opinions of LatestLY)