Entrepreneurship might be in the air, but it always feels like the winds are yet to reach the rural areas. To speed up this process, CULT-Warangal and Telangana State Innovation Cell (TSIC) are going to flag off Telangana Innovation Yatra (TIY) 2020. Picture this — four days, four buses, four routes, 4,000 kilometres, 120 participants, 33 districts and 10 mentors. Starting February 19, these student participants are going to travel to rural areas of the state in buses and have the pleasure of meeting rural innovators who have been solving grassroots problems with ingenuity. The district collectors of each district have also been asked to present five problems each from three different departments for the participants on board to solve. The 120 participants themselves were handpicked from the 500 who had applied. The aim is to provide exposure through interactions and opportunities to work together and learn from each other.
Nihaal Sangepu from KULT, which is a student community spread across 13 colleges in Warangal district, informs us that their aim is to help students in Tier II and Tier III towns find their passion. And whether that lies in technology, innovation or music, KULT helps them find mentors or online courses so that they can hone their skills. They have partnerships with companies like Salesforce, Automation Anywhere and so on for the same reason.
KULT has worked with TSIC before and this time, it is as big as it gets. The 120 participants will be travelling via four routes — Warangal, Khammam, Adilabad and Gadwal. "The whole point is that these innovators meet rural innovators, learn from them and come up with their own solutions," says Nihaal. This indeed remains the most lucrative opportunity for participants who, while interacting with rural innovators, will understand how to make the best of what they have and still come up with applicable solutions.
But this is not all. The challenges from the district collectors office will also keep them occupied and, "mentors will assist these participants every step of the way," says the 19-year-old. The challenges the participants can expect will range from agriculture to municipal and at the grand finale, to be held at T-Hub in Hyderabad, which is the endpoint for all four routes, is where all innovations will flourish. "The trip helps innovators establish a direct connection with district-level personnel and gives them hands-on experience," says the fourth-year engineering student of Keshav Memorial Institute of Technology, Hyderabad.
With the conclusion of this journey on February 22, Nihaal hopes that participants are exposed to Telangana's innovation ecosystem and start contributing to it with their ideas. "Hopefully, this will herald a new era of innovation in the state," he concludes.
Order of the day
Day 1: Design thinking workshop and meeting local innovators
Day 2: Understanding problems of district administrations
Day 3: Understanding local innovations and documenting it
Day 4: Exposure to local ecosystem in Hyderabad
For more on them, check out innovationyatra.com
