Innovation is the buzzword. In fact, it has been the buzzword for so long, you could say that we’ve developed a cult around it. Fortune 500 companies, universities, colleges and local school systems all agree that it is the key to the future. We should definitely start thinking/talking more about innovation as a sequence of separate skills and behaviours.
The push for innovation resulted from our understanding that human advancements over the past few decades are increasing our reliance on technology, shrinking the world, and levelling the field of competition globally. Is it needless to say that innovation is the need of the hour to remain competitive and competent in the global economy? Certainly not…
Hence, to nurture young minds and solve the problems of humanity, Innovation Cell has been set up by the Ministry of Education, Govt. of India with the special mandate to promote activities involving education sector to foster the culture of appreciating, nurturing, supporting and handholding new ideas.
National Innovation and startup policy (NISP) intends to guide HEIs for promoting students’ driven innovations & start-ups and to engage the students and faculty in innovation and start up activities in the campus. The policy aims at enabling HEIs to build, streamline and strengthen the innovation and entrepreneurial ecosystem in the campus.
Dr. Pooja Rawat, the innovation officer from AICTE has enlightened us on Innovation practices to be adopted at educational Institutions and how to set the ball rolling in adopting NISP in our institution. Around 100+ participants (Faculty & Students) participated in the webinar
Agenda
Welcome Address : Mr.Punith Kumar, Asst. Professor, ME
Special Address : Dr. Suresh L, Principal
Introduction of Speaker : Dr. Shankar S, Professor & President IIC-CiTech
Key Note Speaker : Dr. Pooja Rawat, Innovation Officer, AICTE
Vote of Thanks : Dr. Suneel Kumar Kulkarni, Professor & HoD – ME

Dr. Pooja Rawat
Innovation Officer, Ministry of Education’s Innovation Cell AICTE, NEW DELHI
National Innovation and startup policy (NISP)
Dr. Pooja Rawat is an Innovation Officer at the Ministry of Education’s Innovation Cell. At Innovation Cell, she is responsible for promoting innovation and startups related initiatives in higher education institutes across India. In addition to the implementation of National Innovation and Startup Policy (NISP) at academic institutes of the country, she is currently taking care of the ‘Yukti2.0’ and ‘Drug Discovery Hackathon’ Initiative, launched by the Ministry in 2020.
Dr. Pooja is also a registered patent agent, certified by Ministry of Commerce and Industry, Government of India and has good understanding of patent laws and patent prosecution.
Earlier, Dr. Pooja worked with National Innovation Foundation, Ahmedabad, where she significantly contributed to the pre-clinical and clinical validation of grassroots innovations, product development and was involved in planning and management of more than 90 validation and value addition research projects during her tenure. She did her Ph.D. from CSIR-Institute of Microbial Technology, Chandigarh and has 7+ years of post-doctoral experience working in the domain of technological Innovation and Intellectual Property Rights.
Dr. Pooja has published several research papers, book chapters, popular articles with reputed national and International publishers.
Her interests include public policy, intellectual property and technological innovations.