India Needs More Founders, Not Followers: Why VGU Backs Student-Led Ventures

Let’s start with a fun fact. Or a sad one, depending on how you look at it.

India produces over 4 million graduates every year.
And yet, our top economic policy question remains:
“Where will the jobs come from?”

This is the academic equivalent of a factory manufacturing cars that can’t run on roads—and then wondering why traffic’s so bad.
But don’t worry. We have solutions.

• More syllabus.
• More exams.
• More "placement cells" that ask students to fill out 17 forms before getting a 17K-per-month internship.

What we don’t have? Founders.

People who say, “Forget the job. I’ll create the company.”

The Indian Education Paradox: So Many Degrees, So Little Direction

Let’s crunch some numbers:

• India is home to over 1,100 universities and over 43,000 colleges.
• We produce the second-highest number of STEM graduates in the world (after China).
• We also rank 94th out of 132 in the Global Innovation Index (2023).

Translation: We are good at preparing students for exams. Not so much for life.
According to an Aspiring Minds employability report, only 45.8% of engineering graduates are employable for a software role.

You would think with all this talent, our campuses would be buzzing with ideas, products, prototypes.
Instead, what you usually find is a broken projector, last year's MBA case study, and a 3-hour lecture on “vision-mission statements.”

The Real Problem: We’ve Made Obedience the Goal

Indian education teaches many things:

• How to memorize a definition.
• How to quote a theorist you do not fully understand.
• How to look attentive during a Zoom class while watching Netflix on another tab.

What it rarely teaches is:

• How to ask questions.
• How to test an idea.
• How to take a risk that may not come with a CGPA reward.

We have built an entire system where the highest reward goes to those who follow best. And then we wonder why no one wants to build something of their own.

Startups vs. Syllabus: The Great Disconnect

Let us say you are a 20-year-old in Kota. You have a killer idea to fix food wastage. You want to build a tech product. But guess what?
Your curriculum still looks like this:

• Unit 1: Types of Management
• Unit 2: Definitions of Leadership (by Kotler, Drucker, and your tuition teacher)
• Unit 3: “Prepare a PowerPoint on Ola’s marketing strategy (based on 2017 data)”

Nowhere in this is:

• “How do I validate a business idea?”
• “How do I run an MVP?”
• “How do I pitch to a seed investor?”
• “What happens when your co-founder ghosts you and your parents want you to write CAT?”

Enter VGU: Where “Student Founder” Isn’t an Oxymoron

At Vivekananda Global University, we decided that enough is enough.

If India’s going to be a $5 trillion economy, we can’t keep waiting for foreign MNCs to do the hiring.
We need to flip the script: Create jobs, do not just chase them.

Here is what we are doing:

1. The Startup Studio Model

Our entrepreneurship cell does not run on posters and Gyaan. It runs like a startup studio.

• Students come in with raw ideas.
• We help them refine the problem statement, define the user, map the market.
• They get access to mentors, designers, coders, domain experts.
• They build prototypes, get feedback, pitch to VGU’s internal micro-fund.

Yes, we have our own fund. Because kaam karne ke liye sirf advice नहीं, capital भी चाहिए।

2. Failure-Friendly Campus Culture

We’ve banned the word “kaash” (as in, “kaash maine try kiya hota”).

In fact, we celebrate failed attempts. If your idea bombed but your learnings were solid—you get applause. And pizza.
Because in our eyes:

• One failed startup = 1 semester of real-world MBA.
• One investor rejection = 1 credit in Emotional Intelligence.

3. Startups As Projects, Not Side Hustles

In most colleges, if you build a startup while studying, you’re told: “Focus on your studies.”
(As if building a company is somehow less valuable than making a PPT on SWOT analysis.)

At VGU, we say:
“Let your startup be your project.”

We give academic credits for building ventures. We even allow customized evaluation rubrics.
Because let’s be honest—if you're pitching to Shark Tank, that deserves more marks than your viva on "types of organisational structure."

4. Campus-Wide Founder Curriculum

Not every student wants to be a unicorn founder. But every student deserves entrepreneurial thinking.
So we’ve embedded startup literacy across departments:

• Law students explore legal design for startups.
• Design students learn product-market storytelling.
• Engineering students work with UX and branding from day one.
• Agri students pitch their ideas at VGU’s "Farm to Fund" showcase.

We don’t want to produce "just engineers" or "just managers."
We want to build founder-minds—students who can ideate, execute, and pivot across domains.

The Results? Real. Measurable. Inspiring.

• Over 120 student startups incubated in the past two years.
• 6 have received seed funding, 3 are revenue-generating.
• Over 150 students enrolled in our ‘Build Your Venture’ course, with live mentorship.
• One VGU startup even raised ₹22 lakh in grant support from a government fund.

And no, these aren’t token stats for an annual report. These are students you’ll meet in our canteen—coding on laptops while sipping chai.

A Final Stat to Leave You With

In a recent LinkedIn report, India ranks #1 in the world for startup intent among college graduates.
But only 1 in 20 actually tries. Why?
Because most campuses prepare students to be compliant, not courageous. At VGU, we’re changing that.

We’re building a generation of students who will leave not with just a degree, but with a direction.

This Is Not Just About Startups. It’s About Sovereignty.

The future of India won’t be built on placements alone. It’ll be built on possibility.

When a 21-year-old from Udaipur launches an edtech for tribal regions, or a design graduate builds an AI-enabled career discovery tool, or a fashion-tech idea from VGU makes it to an accelerator in Berlin—that’s not just startup success.
That’s nation-building.

And it starts with believing that students aren’t just vessels to be filled. They’re firestarters. They’re builders. They’re founders.
Let the rest of the world ask: “Who’s hiring?”
At VGU, we ask: “Who’s creating?”
Because India doesn’t just need graduates. India needs founders.

Author: Prof. (Dr) N.D Mathur, President