Innovative initiatives of the Institution

 Institution has taken initiatives for creating an ecosystem for Innovation by establishing Innovation Centre/Cell. The institution has also taken innovative initiatives by providing access to diversified learner groups

 Write description in maximum of 1000 words

 Response:

Ecosystem for Innovation and Centre for Innovation, Startup and Entrepreneurship:

 Dr. Babasaheb Ambedkar Open University's efforts to bring awareness about startup and innovation in students as well as to promote, support and disseminate innovations in Open and Distance Learning (ODL) System and to develop innovation and startup ecosystem in the university; resulted in the establishment of dedicated Centre namely "Dronacharya – Centre for Innovation, Startup and Entrepreneurship” https://baou.edu.in/CISE

 BAOU-CISE’s vision is to give an accelerated platform to idea-level entrepreneurs and support them with the necessary resources and mentorship to build real value from their current ideas.

 Initially funded by the University, BAOU-CISE is now supported with SSIP Grant by the Government of Gujarat. Dr. Babasaheb Ambedkar Open University received a grant of Rs. 1 Crore each for two years, i.e. 2 crores for students under the Student Startup and Innovation Policy of Government of Gujarat.

 BAOU-CISE supports an accelerating innovation mechanism which puts an imperative emphasis on offering no-cost startup support, especially to the idea/early-stage startups during their pre-incubation, incubation and acceleration periods to help them experiment and grow with their ideas. This model helps them to accelerate their ideas with a build fast, break fast ideology.

 BAOU-CISE has initiated Incubation and Capacity Development Programmes towards innovations; and by instituting awards for promoting and recognizing innovations among students and faculty.

 University has started BAOU – Student Open Innovation Challenge on “Atmanirbhar Bharat – Ideathon” amongst 254 Study Centres to bring out the innovations from the students and to make it a reality, the winners of this Innovation Challenge are awarded with Prize Money and are incubated at BAOU. University has also signed MoU with various industries and Organizations to train and support Students for their innovation.

 University invites the corporate leaders to provide leadership development, coaching and mentorship and other support systems enabling innovators to succeed, further we conduct various Seminars to promote innovation and pre-incubation awareness amongst students of various programmes. Students of various courses are trained to undergo real time field work and to prepare the models which can result in innovative projects related to society, industries, and community.

 University has initiated to support the Student Start-ups through interventions like Incubation space & facilities, Virtual Incubation/Mentoring and allied support,  support for Seed Funding, support for Proof of Concept (PoC) and Prototyping grant, support for patent filing, Documentation/Publication/Dissemination

 Innovative initiatives to provide access and services to diversified learner groups:

Dr. Babasaheb Ambedkar Open University is first of its kind of Open University amongst all state open universities, which has introduced various innovative teaching-learning practices like OMKAR, OMKAR-e, Swadhyay TV, Swadhyay Radio, Virtual Classroom, Mobipaedia, Educational Apps, Vande Gujarat Educational Channel etc. All the services are offered through various web and mobile based applications which provide device independent learning experience.

●     OMKAR: Open Matrix Knowledge Advancement Resource is a technology-enabled domain, constituting a repository of e-resources of information and knowledge making the e-content accessible to millions of students and aspirants across the globe.

●     OMKAR-e: Considering the demand of today's learner, BAOU is the first State Open University in India to successfully launch an internet enabled open access free-of-cost digital learning platform for online and self-driven courses that pro-activates learning. 18 Multilingual courses offered and others are under development that covers wide spectrum varieties.URL:  www.omkare.in

●     eResources: Self- Learning Study Material at Students’ Finger Tip: Study materials of all the courses are available on the University website, so the students can easily view, read, download and refer at his/her convenience. 

●     Virtual Classroom: In order to facilitate distance learner for face to face interaction like a conventional classroom, BAOU has set up 6 Virtual classrooms across Gujarat. Students from all over Gujarat will be benefited.

●     Vande Gujarat Educational Channel: University broadcasts live/ recorded content on Government of Gujarat’s educational channel number 16 VANDE (Video Audio Network for Development and Education) Gujarat. Which is available free of cost on Jio Network apart from DTH.

●     Swadhyaya TV and Swadhyaya Radio: 

     URL for swadhyay TV: www.baou.edu.in/swadhyay.tv

URL for swadhyay Radio: www.baou.edu.in/swadhyay.radio

Swadhyaya TV and Swadhyaya Radio are the two rare initiatives that took place for the first time by any State University. These innovative initiatives by BAOU,facilitate web based learning through video and radio. A state of the art High Definition TV and Sound recording “Chaitanya” studio with post production facilities supplement these initiatives to ensure high quality educational content production. This facility and initiatives will also work towards enriching the archival system for OMKAR-e.

●     Educational Apps: Five Indigenously designed android mobile educational apps for providing vital information about the university have also been launched. All apps can be downloaded from the Google Play store. Internet connection is not required once the apps are downloaded and installed

●     Mobipaedia: BAOU is the first university to introduce Educational Mobile Apps- Mobipaedia, to assist the keen learners.  This Mobile Encyclopedia application provides information related to unfamiliar terms or words as a reply SMS with minimal cost involved. The android application MOBIPAEDIA can be downloaded from Google Play store at no extra cost.

BAOU contentiously strives to reach the learner at a large and to support learners with the various ICT based innovative initiatives.

●     Ask-Me Kiosk: A student friendly initiative by BAOU, an ASK-ME kiosk is an internet enabled digital touch screen device displaying detailed information about the university free of cost.

●     Jyotirgamay: Jyortirgamaya facilitates any student who fulfills requisite eligibility criteria to take the examination from the list of selected courses on the basis of her / his self-study and preparation of the domain knowledge pertaining to the concerned area. For the benefit of such students, who may not have taken admission to the university in the regular course, as well as for anyone seeking knowledge and willing to improve upon her/his current knowledge base.

●     ‘Eklavya’ - Student Support Portal, a one-stop destination for students to access and download their information. This ICT enabled tool opens a unique window for each student.