Hewlett and Packard, both Stanford University graduates, met on campus, became friends and had all the backing of the university as they launched their enterprise from a garage at Palo Alto.

Our own Amar G. Bose did all his research on sound systems when he was a professor of electrical engineering at MIT, before he launched the iconic BOSE line.

Closer home, a structured initiative to “ignite young minds” and take entrepreneurship to the campus as a career option is taking shape, with students and faculty equally upbeat about its potential.

The city chapter of TiE (The Indus Entrepreneurs), a global non-profit organisation focused on promoting entrepreneurship, has been on campus call, offering students guidance and help from successful and experienced entrepreneurs and professionals who are part of its wide network.

“The bulwark of the US success story has been the way they have synchronised university research, entrepreneurs/ industry and federal grant. We hope to be behind the creation of a few successful entrepreneurs and help institutions to successfully incubate new initiatives,” Shoummo K. Acharya, president of TiE Calcutta chapter, tells Metro.

Having “cemented its relationship” with Indian Institute of Management Calcutta (IIMC), TiE representatives have also met students at IIT Kharagpur and Jadavpur University. Also on the radar are West Bengal University of Technology, Bengal Engineering & Science University, Durgapur and North Bengal engineering colleges.

IIMC has seen an increasing acceptance of entrepreneurship as career option on campus over the past few years. “Around 24 per cent of our students would like to become entrepreneurs benchmarked against 20 per cent at MIT,” says Anjan Rai Chaudhuri, in charge of Centre for Entrepreneurship at the Joka institution.

He feels the collaboration with TiE is significant, since it brings industry and networking support for young people. IIMC, facilitator at the TiEger Awards 2006, has been requested to study the award-winners to identify the quality of entrepreneurship and business process for possible replication.

“We try and successfully marry entrepreneurship instinct with business processes, because first-generation entrepreneurs have a problem vis-à-vis business processes. Parallel to that, we are attempting to create an angel fund, because, if you create the interest, then you also have to look at the next steps,” declares Acharya.

“TiE is networked with a host of successful entrepreneurs all over the world and they can help us by sharing their experiences and also with speed-mentoring,” says Dawn Thomas, fourth-year student of architecture at IIT Kharagpur.

TiE’s action plan in the city includes preparing a business plan competition as part of TiEGER 2007, organising a debate on Socialism and Entrepreneurship in November, an Enterprise Summit (January 12-13, 2007) along with IIMC and an Enterprise and Knowledge Mela in February 2007.