BITS Pilani allows students a year off to start their own startups

The Birla Institute of Technology and Science (BITS), Pilani announced that it will permit students and professors to take up to a year off to start their own startups. This announcement appears to be an optimistic step toward promoting entrepreneurship in India.

According to the BITS policy document issued to its students, "in case (a) student decides to take a year off to pursue entrepreneurship on a full-time basis, his application would be routed through the dean for approval...”

The Indian Institutes of Technology (IITs), which continue to dominate the nation's startup and unicorn ecosystems, are being challenged by BITS with this effort. One of the 23 IITs in India produced at least one founder of over 73 of the country's more than 100 unicorn companies, according to earlier reports. 

In the meantime, data from Tracxn Technologies shows that graduates of BITS Pilani have started more than 900 businesses, with more than 13 of them making it onto the list of Indian unicorns, including Zeta, MPL, Swiggy, BigBasket, and Groww. Alumni of BITS include Phanindra Sama of RedBus, Hari Menon of Big Basket, and Sriharsha Majety of Swiggy.

The BITS innovation and startup policy of 2022 was recently developed by the institute and is intended to "guide in setting resource plans to achieve the institute's entrepreneurship goals and give momentum to startups and other ventures founded and co-founded by BITSians in India and around the world."

It's interesting to note that the document also permits students who are pursuing entrepreneurial ventures to register their firm with the proper permission using their institute address. Students whose businesses have been supported and nurtured by PIEDS (Pilani Innovation & Entrepreneurship Development Society), the official tech-business incubator of BITS Pilani, are eligible to use this facility. The regulation made it clear that students might receive course credit for developing original prototypes and business plans.

BITS Pilani's progressive, unique approach to tech education has long been talked about. It includes the no-attendance policy, different incubation pathways, delayed placement policy, and early-graduation programme. Students think that the new regulation restores BITS' entrepreneurial ethos.

"Deferred placements are helpful only if you are beginning in your last year, but all students would benefit from having the option of taking a year off. The new policy, in my opinion, is a method to actively and structurally encourage entrepreneurship on campus "Conquest," India's first student-run startup accelerator, powered by BITS, Pilani, is now led by third-year BITS student Utkarsh Choudhary.

The new policy, according to the document, will support maintaining uniformity among different policies and procedures throughout campuses of BITS Pilani.