due to plastic waste.
Thousands of such start-ups have emerged in our country which has provided elegant solutions to some of the problems. They are the excellent examples of how innovative thinking can lead to wonders.
Ministry of commerce and industry, government of India have started a very attractive start-up scheme called # startupindia- If you have an innovative solution to a problem, your company would be provided necessary funds and infrastructure. So if you think that you have a solution to a problem, you can pitch your idea to get the funds. One just has to think slightly out of the box. I think innovative biotech start-ups are the need of the day and more biotech people should see these problems as an opportunity and grab it.
How can biotech graduates play a role?
A biotechnology graduate has a lot of possibilities in this sector. One can join research and development departments of various microbiology and pharmaceutical based companies to contribute to new product design and manufacture. A biotech graduate can take up a job in pathology labs to help in disease diagnosis. One can also take up the job as a technical person in various research institutes for helping researchers in using various sophisticated machines for PCR, DNA sequencing, protein structure determination and much more. These are the first opportunities available at first look.
Being a Junior Research Fellow( JRF) allows one to be working on various research projects in research labs across the country. If one very much keen in continuing research as a career, then he or she can enroll as a doctoral student in various research institutes within the country.
However, most importantly the growing entrepreneur friendly ecosystem also presents them with an opportunity to develop their unique ideas into products if they have potential to solve societal problems.
On the policy front, this is the time when our government must speed up the innovation programmes for expanding growth of the overall biotech sector. India can surely become a world leader in biotechnology.
Chinmay Hemant Joshi is the 4th year Integrated MS student at School of Biology, Indian Institute for Science Education and Research( IISER), Thiruvananthapuram, Kerala, India. He is much passionate about biology and fascinated by various life forms around it. He wants to be a behavioural ecologist in future besides aspiring to become a popular science writer as well.
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