The University of Sri Jayewardenepura has a high number of university students and graduates and academics in different fields of specialization. Some of them have great innovative and applicable ideas which can serve as development tools for supporting the economy of Sri Lanka and as means of reducing unemployment. These entrepreneurial ideas demonstrate a great potential to success if they gain both logistic and financial support. In this regard, university students lack the ability to market themselves, their ideas and to gain the required financial support.
The proposed council will be enriched with professionals who could support inventers or innovators by assessing inventions/innovations for originality, technical performance, commercial feasibility, prototyping and manufacturing etc. In addition,
- The inventor’s council will create an environment that promotes opportunities for excellent researchers to come into contact with excellent entrepreneurs.
- The council will launch an award scheme to value intellectual property of each individual
- The council will assist to scale up photo-type models
- The council will provide financial assistance to obtain international patents
- The council will assist inventors/innovators, in technology transferring process in accordance with the IP policy within the University
- The council will assist the inventors/innovators by providing access to the instrumental facilities available in the University.
- The council will assist the industry professionals to incubation services, programmes and training requirements.
The formation of business accelerators and incubators (BAI) will be part of the services of the council, mainly in collaboration with potential industries and entrepreneurs. Accelerators offer structured development and training with opportunities to attract funding for the most attractive business. The business incubator mainly involves in mentoring and other forms of business and technical support. It provides entrepreneurs with the assistance to fill the knowledge gaps and with tools to present their ideas in a logical and feasible way during the pre-incubation stage. Also it is expected to decrease the early operational cost by providing entrepreneurs with a set of shared services and facilitates their access to external information.