Karnataka Govt’s BiSEP to mentor manpower for entrepreneurship

The Government of Karnataka’s Department of Biotechnology and Science & Technology under the Department of Information technology in collaboration with Biotechnology Skill Enhancement Programme (BiSEP) is mentoring manpower for entrepreneurship. Under the BiSEP programme, it has invited the final semester/year qualifying degree examination students for the Karnataka Biotechnology Aptitude Test (K-BAT).

BiSEP is to redesign curriculum jointly by Department of IT, Biotechnology and Science & Technology in collaboration with Life Science Sector Skill Development Council (LSSSDC), Institute of Chemical Technology (CSIR-IICT) and Association of Biotechnology Led Enterprises (ABLE).

Dr S Balasubramanya, Sr Consultant (Biotech), KITS, Karnataka Dept of IT, BT & S&T informed, "The renewed focus of BiSEP is not only to impart industry-specific skills and meet the trained manpower needs of the industry, but also to ensure the students are mentored and nurtured to entrepreneurship."

Prashant Kumar Mishra, IAS, Managing Director, KITS emphasised, "BiSEP is a novel initiative of Government of Karnataka through which we want to expose the students to specialised sub-domains of Biotechnology. This will bring about a seamless connect between academia and industry".

The objective of the programme is to provide industry-oriented training to students, so that they are job-ready or employable. Students will be given a monthly fellowship for Rs 10,000 during the course period of 12 months. Skill-sets acquired under BiSEP are assessed by industry experts thus making it a unique industry –academic partnership programme.

Dr Renu Swarup, Secretary, Department of Biotechnology, Government of India, said, "What we are trying to do through BiSEP is to give the candidates joining the programme that extra bit of curriculum and understanding of what the industry needs, so that they can begin contributing to the growth of the biotech sector from day one of their employment."

Under BiSEP, the students based on their ranking in the online test can select the institute and biotechnology sub-domain to get specific hands-on training and followed by compulsory industry internship arranged by the institute in relevant industry. By this, the student is able to gain the skill/knowledge of the sub-domain and the industry that he intends to have career in. Hands-on training and performance of the student during the internship will enable him/her to get job in the same company that he interned with or in other companies based on the training obtained.

Balasubramanya further mentioned, "Through this programme, students will have enhanced career options. Many of them start their own venture and become entrepreneurs."

Gaurav Gupta, Principal Secretary, Dept of IT, BT and S&T, Government of Karnataka, said, "This is a first-of-its-kind initiative, envisioned to bridge the gap between industry requirements and quality of students passing out of institutions. We provide students the experience of real-life industry-oriented experience where they work on problems which are not taught in depth in regular academic curriculum. With the Biotech Finishing School programme, Karnataka became one of the first states in India to focus on skill development in biotechnology. Through BiSEP, we aim to continue to support the growth of the biotech sector and create a trained workforce supply which has quality skillsets that are industry-ready by enabling collaboration between academia and industry."

BiSEP is a specialised programme that was launched in March 2018 and has so far trained over 325 students in two batches and placed all of them in industries for internship. It is implemented through select 18 host institutes of higher education located in eight districts of Karnataka (seven in Bengaluru and 11 outside it). These host institutes together have tie-ups with over 150 biotechnology industries that include Biocon, Thermo Fisher Scientific, Himalaya Drug Company, Anthem Biosciences, Bharat Biotech and also biotech start-ups like String Bio, Viravecs Labs, Seragen Biotherapeutics, etc, to help them in imparting industry-specific skillsets and also provide internship.

A maximum of 360 students will be trained in each batch with every institute having maximum 20 students.

Professor G Padamanaban, Member of Vision Group for Biotechnology, Govt of Karnataka, believes, "Biotechnology is a knowledge-based industry and requires highly skilled manpower and BiSEP has a major role to play to equip the candidates with adequate skills and provide for growth of biotech sector both in Karnataka and outside."

By Usha Sharma

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