School:Vignan's Foundation for Science Technology & Research University

Introduction

Vignan’s Foundation for Science, Technology and Research University is a private University in Guntur, Andhra Pradesh, India. It believes in Building Skill India. This University is a home for 4700 undergraduates and 700 post graduates. It offers B.Tech degree in 16 fields and M.Tech degree in 9 fields. It also offers MCA, BCA, BBA, MBA and Ph.D courses.

Promoting student innovation and entrepreneurship

The university provides several ways to promote student innovation and entrepreneurship on campus. Several courses are made a part of the curriculum which either focus on the trending research topics or aim at imparting knowledge to the students using which they can conduct researches. It’s a must for the students to design and present projects as a part of their curriculum. This aspect encourages the students to put their knowledge to practical use.
The university has an Entrepreneurship Cell that motivates students towards Entrepreneurship by conducting inspirational talks by young entrepreneurs. The E-cell also conducts several events which provide the students an opportunity to pitch their ideas, meet the entrepreneurs and also to get suggestions from them.
The university also has a Student Activities Council (SAC) which conducts several events that provide a platform for the students to exhibit their innate talents. They also organize several events on campus.
Various departments also conduct seminars and workshops that help the students to enhance their knowledge in diverse areas. The varsity has several magazines at the university and department level that encourages the students who have flair towards writing.
The university offers internship opportunities to students to offer a real time industry experience.

Encouraging faculty innovation and entrepreneurship

The university encourages faculty to conduct researches in their areas of interest. The organization provides funding for some of the researches while others receive it from seed funding sources.
The faculty not only takes active part in several national and international conferences/workshops/seminars but also publish their papers in various journals. The university funds 50% for international conferences and 100% for national conferences. They believe that if faculty diversifies their areas of knowledge then it’ll be a great support and help for the students on campus. With this perspective, they reimburse the registration fee for online courses if the faculty completes them successfully and also motivates them to take part in seminars and workshops on latest technologies at absolutely no cost.
In addition to their own innovations, they also encourage students by giving insights about the various research topics and motivating them to conduct researches. The faculty guides at the incubation centre encourage students who come up with innovative ideas.

Facilitating university-industry collaboration

The university and all the departments in it collaborate with various industries to provide internships to the students. There is even a Centre of Excellence for Advanced Materials, Manufacturing, Processing and Characterization which provides the basic input needed for conducting various researches.
The university has an MOU with several foreign universities. The students have also been to the Korea Tech University for a twining program.
The varsity also has several wet lab spaces and technological labs which were set up by investing a large amount of capital.
The APSSDC (Andhra Pradesh State Skill Development Corporation) offers many courses for the students for skill development and has also established some labs on campus that provide hands on experience to the students.

Engaging with regional and local economic development efforts

The university takes up projects that can facilitate the smooth functioning of other colleges around it. It has provided the University, Hostel, Library, and Mess Management Systems to several colleges.
The University also caters to the needs of the surrounding schools by providing them with the necessary furniture. They even conduct some courses like Spoken English in order to help them grow.
Some of the researches on campus also focus on the society. For example there is an ongoing research on campus titled ‘Development of Educational Suite for training visually impaired students in Computer Programming and Information Technology Skills’.