VTU launches ‘She Innovates’ to promote entrepreneurship among pre-final year female engineering students

Visvesvaraya Technological University (VTU) has launched “She Innovates”, an initiative to promote entrepreneurship among pre-final year female engineering students across its affiliated institutions, through the Visvesvaraya Research and Innovation Foundation (VRIF).

The programme is designed as an entrepreneurship and incubation initiative for pre-final year female students of VTU, and it has already attracted over 5,000 registrations.

The programme aims to create 100 women-led start-ups within one year, fostering a new generation of women founders from engineering campuses. This initiative is jointly supported by leading ecosystem partners, including Wipro, JAN AI, UN Women, the Karnataka Digital Economy Mission (KDEM), and the TiE Chapters of Hubballi, Bengaluru, Mangaluru, and Mysuru.

There are 220 engineering colleges under the VTU, with more than 300,000 students enrolled. Eighty girl students from each college will be allowed to register for this programme. A competition will be held for students to find solutions to problems at various levels.

Finally, 100 students will be selected for this project. The VTU will serve as a platform for the large-scale implementation of the projects developed by the students by providing financial assistance for the prototype models.

The main objective of this programme is to provide solutions to social and economic problems at rural and district levels using artificial intelligence (AI) technology.

S. Vidyashankar, Vice-Chancellor, VTU, said, “We have designed this programme to recognise and encourage the talents of women students. We will give first priority to those from rural areas. Several companies have come forward to help us with this. Selected students will also be given mentors.”

Several tech companies like Wipro have expressed strong enthusiasm for expanding Generative AI innovation to rural India. Wipro has also emphasised long-term campus engagement and continued collaboration with the VTU’s VRIF.

Sanjeev Jain, chief operating officer, Wipro, has announced Wipro’s commitment across four key engagement pillars in the “She Innovates” programme: conducting Yukti Manthan hackathons, training students in problem-solving and innovation, providing mentorship from Wipro employees, and offering joint certification for programme participants. Furthermore, he explained that the programme would include technical onboarding using platforms such as Hugging Face and Gradio, followed by a structured hackathon execution phase, evaluation and shortlisting, and finally incubation or acceleration pathways for selected teams to ensure continuity and start-up development.