Entrepreneurship is the willingness to develop a business venture with new ideas, inventions and technologies. It greatly contributes to increase the job opportunities. Moreover, it is of great benefit for unskilled youths to get trained and gained experience. Chemistry is the most expressive branch of Science in view of its creative power and unlimited scope and of course it is an applied science.

Department of Chemistry, and IQAC, MBB College organized a one day Workshop on the “Scope of Entrepreneurship Development for UG Level Students of Chemistry” on 28th July, 2021 via online Google Meet platform for the benefit of undergraduate Chemistry students, inspired by the idea of “Atmanirbhar Bharat Abhiyan.”

The organizing committee received overwhelming response during online registration process not only from in house students but also from the students of different colleges of all over Tripura and also from the students of ICFAI University. It is pertinent to mention here that more than 250 nos. of students actively participated in the workshop.

The inaugural session of the programme started at 11 am with the welcome address by the Organizing Secretary, Dr. Asish Mitra, Associate Professor & Head, Department of Chemistry, MBB College. He highlighted the scope of this workshop and how the entrepreneurship can play a vital role of shaping the career of Chemistry graduates. He hoped that the workshop would not only motivate our students but also stimulate them to become entrepreneurs with the skill they achieved in undergraduate Chemistry courses. He welcomed all the dignitaries, the resource persons and the participants in the workshop.

The Patron of the workshop, Sri N.C. Sharma, Director, Higher Education, Government of Tripura at the outset congratulated MBB College for organizing a workshop on student’s career oriented theme which is absolutely necessary in present scenario. He emphasized the need of taking Start-up projects by the entrepreneurs coming from chemistry fraternity. Sri Sharma also encouraged the students to generate new ideas and innovation in their efforts of shaping their career differently.

The Chairperson of the workshop, Dr. Dipannita Chakraborty, Principal, M.B.B. College then addressed the august gathering and mentioned the role of this prestigious institution to nurture the young minds to develop the skill to face the bigger world. She hoped that the students will take keen interest in building their career as entrepreneurs after attending the illuminating lectures that would be delivered by the esteemed resource persons.

In the first technical session, the honourable resource person Dr. D. C. Hota, Associate Professor, Department of Commerce, MBB College talked on the topic “Exploring Opportunities for Entrepreneurship: Concept, Issues and Practices.” He explained the basics of entrepreneurship such as the frequently used terms in entrepreneurship, the definition of an entrepreneur and enterprise and the characteristics of a true entrepreneur. He mentioned lucidly the various path that to be crossed for an entrepreneur such as discovery, concept development, resourcing, actualization and harvesting. In addition to that he discussed elaborately how to start a business, the relation between business and finance, the legal requirements for a new entrepreneur. Dr. Hota also exemplified some case studies related to successful entrepreneur and motivated our participants to see the dream of becoming the entrepreneur. The session was very informative and students interacted freely with Dr. Hota to clear their doubts about various aspects of entrepreneurship.

The next technical session was started on a topic “Scope and Challenges to become an Entrepreneur in Chemistry” and that was delivered by our honourable resource person Dr. Swarup Majumder, a true Entrepreneur himself. He briefly placed the present status of Indian Chemical Industry and its role to shape the Nation before the audience. He also discussed the huge scope and diversities of small scale chemical industry in Tripura. Dr. Majumder explained the term entrepreneurship in terms of chemistry students and mentioned about Acharya Prafulla Chandra Ray, the first entrepreneur in the field of Chemistry in India who established “Bengal Chemicals & Pharmaceuticals” in Kolkata. After that he explained the problems that might be faced by a new entrepreneur in the course of starting a new start up in chemistry field. Dr. Majumder touched the different areas of chemistry where start up could be accomplished such as soap manufacturing, agarbati sticks, toothbrush handle, dust free chalk, room freshener, herbal shampoo and many more. Most interestingly, he discussed his own endeavour in the field of entrepreneurship as he has developed and commercialized some household items such as liquid dish cleaner, Neam handwash, floor cleaner under the brand name of Tripura Chemicals. Students found the lecture very interesting and practical. They spontaneously interacted with Dr. Majumder and the whole discussion became very lively.

Finally, the Vote of Thanks was given by Dr. Saikat Das Sharma, Assistant Professor, Department of Chemistry, MBB College for making the workshop a grand success.