India has traveled a long way, form being a agricultural economy to a knowledge economy. Now India stands in the forefront of Global IT service providers and Outsourcing vendors. It’s clear from the above fact that Indians posses the required Knowledge, Skill and Attitude. The question is “Why India can’t produce visionary entrepreneurs”.

Indian’s have a rich history to boast of, that dates back to more than 1500 years. India has to its credit discoveries such as the decimal system, the zero and scientists such as Arya Bhatta, Abdul Kalam, Vikram Sarabhai, but lack innovators and entrepreneurs like Steve Jobs and Bill Gates who have revolutionized the world.

The death of Steve Jobs has sent a shock wave across the Indian youths who see him as a role model. The death of Steve Jobs made big headlines and the response it received shows that the Indian youth saw themselves in him. Very often we come across the question” why don’t we have someone like Jobs in India” and with his death this question is being strongly reframed this time.

When it comes to reasons we have been repeating the same over and again. Let us look at some of the reasons that keep India away from producing innovators and entrepreneurs.

Lack of funds

A study conducted by JGI Idea says that lack of funds is the biggest hurdle for entrepreneurs. The study covered 2,300 aspiring entrepreneurs and working entrepreneurs spanning across fifteen cities across India. According to the study, around fifty two percent of the respondents remarked that lack of access to funds or non availability of funds had prevented them form starting their own business ventures. The study covered major cities such as Bangalore, Ahmedabad, Pune, Delhi, Mumbai, Chennai, and Hyderabad. A depressing fact is that Venture capitalist invests money only when they are sure about high return and low risk.

Inability to take risk

Risk taking ability is one trait that entrepreneurs and innovators should posses. But unfortunately this is absent in many of the Indians. In India innovation is usually an discovery of what has been a commonknowledge in the West. One fact is evident that Indians lack thinking in terms of innovations.

One of the reasons that prevent Indians from taking risk is the fear of failure. Indian gives a lot of importance to what others think and say about us. Indians do not think in the direction of entrepreneurship because of the simple reason “what will the people around say if I fail”. Another important reason for fear of failure is the lack of sufficient external fund. Many wonderful projects don’t come up just because of lack of funds and even if they come up, they are under funded.

The study conducted by JGI Idea identified that around fifteen percent of the respondents were worried about the risk involved in starting a new venture.

According to the survey conducted by JGI Idea 40 percent of the respondents wanted to be their own boss. Financial freedom was one of the important driving force behind becoming an entrepreneur with 25 percent of the respondents voting in favor of it. Another 15 percent of the respondents said freedom to pursue one’s passion is their reason for starting their own venture.

The education system

A critical factor that fuels the economy of most of the developed countries is education. The education system in India is so rigid that it offers no flexibility in pursuing the path one likes, once he is into it. The Indian education is mostly about obsolete and outdated theory without any practical perspective and innovation. Moreover the present Indian education fails to promote creativity in the minds of students.

The American education model on the contrary offers flexibility where students are encouraged to take up courses based on one’s creativity in addition to the regular graduate courses. For example one takes up course in painting while attending a graduate course in Electrical engineering. Such a provision to compliment the core area of studies with aesthetics is an important benefit whose importance was highlighted by personalities like Steve Jobs. Offering choices to students will help in improving the academic performance of students and improving the quality of education. According to Dev Sood, founder and Chief executive officer of Center of Knowledge Societies the Indian education system prepares a student to face the society by a line of instrumental grading mechanisms that treat them like chickens in a hatchery.

The Indian education system is based on previous British model which helps to enhance the mental storage potential which is of less importance in today’s world.

Lack of attention on excellence

The government of India has recently introduced the $35 tablet which is the perfect example for the heading. The $35 tablet is considered to be the cheapest tablet in the world. The idea of $35 tablet was put forward by the government of India to uplift and enhance the Indian students. The $35 tablet was introduced as means to impart quality higher education to the student in India. The students from premier engineering institutes such as Indian Institute of technology and Indian Institute of Science took the lead in developing the device. The main idea behind this development was to improve the quality in education of students in the developing countries. The $35 tablet was originally started as a $10 tablet project.

The project got delayed due to some difficulties and was delayed and so the price has gone up to $35. After the release of the tablet in October 5, it is understood that the device is quite slow in performance and the touchscreen is slow in response.

Now the question is how will this substandard device with a 366 MHz processor going to enhance the quality of education. Much better performance is being offered by middle level phones available in India. Another demerit with the device is that it is connected to the internet via WiFi, which is popular in the rural areas of India. So what is required is to make available the best software and hardware to the students.

When will India produce Steve Jobs?

Still a long way to go for India to find an answer to this. Certainly a change is needed in the mindset of us as well as in the whole education system. Both cant happen over a few days. It needs a combined effort from government, bodies of education as well as us, the Indian minds.