Unicorns: Spread in classrooms

The unicorn, a mythological animal resembling a horse with a single horn placed centrally on its forehead, that appeared in Mesopotamian artwork, has fascinated man from time immemorial. The fascination seems to have been transferred undiminished in the financial world, where unicorns, the startups that reach $1 billion valuation are called unicorns and the entire ecosystem is excited about them. And there are ample reasons why these new age startups has kindled such enthusiasm in the country.

This year as many as 31 unicorns were reported in the country so far. Some of them have created such a flutter in the stock markets that ample liquidity cannot alone explain the excitement. Investors are getting so enamoured by the central idea of some of these that they are not even bothered by the fact that the companies are yet to make a profit. The most redeeming feature of these companies is that almost all of them are set up by young people who do not hail from business families and have achieved success by the dint of sheer merit and hard work. The government is also banking on them to spread the entrepreneurship culture and generation of employment.

The proliferation of digital technology has made it possible for entrepreneurs without family background in business to make it big, since it requires very few physical infrastructure such as land, water, power, machinery that are required in traditional brick and mortar units. The success of the unicorns offers compelling reason as to why entrepreneurship should be pushed in college curriculums.

To push the culture, colleges should redesign their courses to teach it among their students. It is not enough that engineering and management graduates are successful as entrepreneurs. To foster the culture at the grassroot level, entrepreneurship has to be taken to the districts through classrooms. The government should also extend handholding exercise appropriate for the digital age which, incidentally, requires much less government intervention than the brick-and-mortar world.