Patna University Incubation Hub (PUI-Hub) is the first of its kind of Incubation Center in any university of Bihar. It came into existence after three years of the launching of Bihar Startup Policy in 2016. It is the brainchild of Ranjan Mistry, one of the think tanks of Bihar, who has proposed several projects in Bihar.
It’s like a boon for the students of Patna University, which will encourage the students to do something in their life.
“Startup and entrepreneurship are not about the course or curriculum; it’s all about your experiment with your experience, execution of your idea into reality, and validating your thought process. You can’t make anyone an entrepreneur, until or unless they have the guts to keep their patience high, and are ready to fail numerous times. PUI-Hub will give them an opportunity and encourage every student to become an entrepreneur, but it totally depends on them. We can only assist them, mentor them, connect them, but we can’t make them an entrepreneur.” said Ranjan Mistry, who drafted and proposed PUI-Hub.
What Is Patna University Incubation Hub?
Patna University Incubation Hub (PUI-Hub ) is at the Patna University Campus and it was recently opened in January 2019. It was proposed and designed by Ranjan Mistry, a young social entrepreneur from Bihar along with his teammate Namita Priya, alumni of TISS Tuljapur. The Patna University Committee approved it and the project finally came on the ground this July.
PUI-Hub is the first of its kind of incubation centre in any university in Bihar, which will be based on a self-sustainable model. PUI-Hub will centrally manage all the ten colleges of Patna University.
“Currently, Patna University has approved around 10,000 sq. ft. space in the newly made building beside science college. The PUI-Hub is a great step in nurturing startups of Patna University students and will enhance the innovative skills of our students.”, said Dr Ashok Jha, Assistant Professor, Physics Dept., Patna Science College.
PUI-Hub provides valuable support to the students and alumni of Patna University to enable them in translating their ideas and innovation in various disciplines of arts, science and technology into products, processes and services for commercial exploitation, and the larger benefit of society. PUI-Hub is an innovation center and accelerator on the Patna University Campus. PU has 10 institutions which consist of 40,000 students, 1500 faculty members, and researchers. PUI-Hub’s goal is to create focused groups who will work on solving real-world problems, incubate them, provide them opportunities for skill development and aid creation of new ventures.
“Somehow, Patna University has weakened in the last few decades by giving opportunities to other companies for providing them with consultancy services to develop and run different wings of PU, rather than developing their own services. That’s why me and my teammate Namita Priya proposed PUI-Hub, we didn’t even propose our company as consultants. The reason behind it was very simple, once you had funds then you will hire companies, but when funds come to an end the departments are closed, but here, we develop a self-sustainable model—fully run by Patna University. We aim to build such people in Patna University who will run it properly in future. We didn’t charge a single penny from them. Our vision is to just develop our Patna University “ said Ranjan Mistry.
Patna University Incubation Hub has three pillars that will help us grow and strengthen our ecosystem:
- Incubation: Incubation is a unique and highly flexible combination of business development processes, infrastructure and people, designed to nurture new and small businesses by helping them survive and grow through the difficult and vulnerable early stages of development.
- E-Cell: The Entrepreneurship Cell is a non-profit organization run by the students that aim at manifesting the latent entrepreneurial spirit of the young students. The mission of the cell is to contribute to India’s development by promoting entrepreneurship among the youth—because we believe entrepreneurs will change the nation for the better.
- Co-Working Space: Co-working is a style of work that involves a shared workplace. Unlike a typical office, co-working is usually not employed by the same organization. Ideally, it is attractive to work-at-home professionals, independent contractors, independent scientists or people who travel frequently and end up working in relative isolation. Co-working is a social gathering of a group of people who are still working independently, but share values and are interested in the synergy that can happen from working with people who value working in the same place alongside each other. Co-working offers a solution to the problem of isolation that many freelancers experience working at home, while at the same time letting them escape the distractions at home. It generally costs money in the form of membership dues, though some spaces are free of charge.
“Ranjan Mistry has conducted almost 650+ meetings in last one and half years with students, students’ union, teachers, professors and administration for developing an Incubation Center in Patna University. On July 22, 2018, Dr Supriya Vatsa told Vice-Chancellor sir about this young boy who was roaming around the campus talking about an idea to develop something which will be beneficial for our university. Suddenly, VC Sir asked her for Ranjan Mistry’s number and called him for a meeting in the early morning at his residence, and finally, 23rd July was the foundation day of Patna University’s Incubation Hub. After that, Dr Ashok Kumar Jha, assistant professor of the Physics Department started helping him in making this proposal a reality. In January, VC Sir and Pro-VC Ma’am of Patna University announced the establishment of the centre and everything was in the pipeline, and finally, in July it came on official documents. Temporarily, it will function at the Chemistry Department Building.” Said D.N. Thakur, Director PUI-Hub
Patna University Incubation Hub is currently operated in the building of Dept. of Chemistry of Patna University, but it will be shifted to a new building in the upcoming months. PUI-Hub is willing to collaborate with different organizations for the development and giving new mileage to startup among students.
“We have drafted the proposal in such a way that we can engage students with the startups and entrepreneurial activities more, and break the stereotypes which exist in the minds of students, professors and the Principal. One of the challenges for us in developing the Entrepreneurship Cell in the university like Patna University is that students, professors, and parents are more inclined towards government jobs such as becoming IAS, IFS and so on. One of the major challenges with the college authority like the Principal and the professors is the thinking that ‘startups are only for specific departments that’s why they didn’t encourage the students to do something’. “ said Namita Priya, who drafted the proposal of PUI-Hub, although she doesn’t hold any position in PUI-Hub due to her government job.
Dr D.N. Thakur, HoD of Chemistry Department, has been appointed as the Director of Patna University Incubation Hub along with 11 members including Dr Naqui Ahmed John from Dept. Of English, Dr Sunita Roy from PMIR, Dr Manoj Prabhakar from Dept. of Economics, Guru Prakash from Dept. of Law. Ranjan Mistry has been appointed the Founding External Board Member and Manoj Kumar Sinha as External Member. Vice-Chancellor of Patna University, Prof. Ras Bihari is chief Patron, and Pro-Vice-Chancellor of Patna University, Dr Dolly Sinha is Patron of PUI-Hub.
Student can apply through the official website, and submit their ideas and the evaluation team will evaluate them. After that, the idea will be selected for incubation—where we help them grow by providing facilities like mentoring, networking, funding, and so on.
Due to Patna University Incubation Hub, incubation facility for students have opened; a startup and entrepreneurship culture, internship culture, skill development etc. will develop in the university. The students will also benefit from events and workshops, company collaborations, investor collaborations, job openings, experimental study and exposure, and international collaborations at the university.