The Graduation and Closing ceremony of the Entrepreneurship Mindset Program (EMP) focusing to nurture the entrepreneurial skills and mindset of youth studying in the government ITI colleges of Kerala was inaugurated by K Gopalakrishnan IAS, Director of Training/State Apprenticeship Advisor. Industrial Training Department of Kerala in collaboration with Udhyam Learning Foundation, a Bangalore based non-profit organisation, rolled out the programme in February across multiple government ITIs.  By August 15, around 6,300 students from 64 ITIs have successfully completed the programme that has 30 sessions of experiential learning content.

The employability skill instructors of respective ITIs who were given initial capacity building training from Udhyam Learning Foundation became the enablers of the programme. Inaugurating the virtual event, Gopalakrishnan said, “We have around 104 ITIs in Kerala and more than 5000 ITIs in India. There might be no sufficient job opportunities for all the passouts and the thought of starting up own ventures is an alternate option where we create job creators to empower society holistically". He also showed his interest in making the program available for the upcoming batches as well. 

M S Nehas, Additional Director of Training, Industrial Training Department, Kerala, Mini Mathew, Deputy Director, Industrial Training Department, Nezrin Midhlaj, Project Lead, Udhyam Learning Foundation also shared their views about the program and congratulated the teachers and students.

The platform named Shiksha + was also introduced during the event which will be the post programme engagement support provided to the EMP students of ITIs in entrepreneurship as well as placement related guidance. The winners of the business proposal competition held in government ITIs at the state level also had the opportunity to present their business ideas in the event.