Low Chance Of Survival For Startups Without Support Says Gast

Kolkata: Start-ups or spinout companies would see many more failures and successes across the world for which there was a need to build a sustainable infrastructure, president of Imperial College of London Alice Gast said. Gast said, then the main question would be how to have wa sustainable infrastructure as start-ups need space, funding (VC and seed funding), mentorship and an environment where one can learn from one another. 

"If the failure rate in high, then how can they survive"? Gast told Press Trust of India.

She said that Imperial College, which was UK's leading university in producing start-ups in the last 10 years, had been supporting Indian students in becoming entrepreneurs. The university had been providing them with mentorship, tutoring them on how to pitch before the investors, design concrete business plans and creating markets.

"We are also focussing on sustainable social entrepreneurship for serving the societal problems", Gast said. Imperial College, a leading UK university, had attracted more than $one billion of investment by spinout companies which came out from its incubation facilties in less than a decade, Gast stated. 

Gast said "so far we have not been collaborating with Indian peers in the start-up space. But Imperial College has a number of partnerships with Indian counterparts, especially the IITs, for research in science and technology". Partnerships could also be forged with Indian universities on controlling of tropical diseases like TB, she said.

Currently, nearly 300 Indian students were studying in Imperial College, she said, adding that the number was growing despite a slowdown in the flow to other UK universities. "We are encouraging more Indian students to go to Imperial College for studies", she said. Later, Gast told reporters on the sidelines of a CII meet that she had been a strong advocate for more pilot projects so that more Indian students could get streamline visas which allow stay for one to two years in UK.

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