BioVoice News August 2017 Issue 3 Volume 2 | Page 32

student pulse What after you pass an exam, what after you get an admission, what after you are eligible to begin your research, what after you are ready with your results/product? How will you market it, how will you generate investments to scale up its production, how will you create a brand name, how will you go global, how will you prepare the infrastructure for what’s to come next? Biotechnology being all about the future, how do you expect to contribute to an unexploited, booming industry when you are never taught to look beyond yourself, into the future? Time to go to the roots cause of the issue As long as a biotechnology classroom sticks to its 32 BioVoiceNews | August 2017 conventional book-to- lab practice, and does not teach its students about sustainable entrepreneurship, they’ll never be more than an unprepared and helpless scientist once they step foot outside their institutions. They will be armed with their patents and products, but with no knowledge of what next, how to go big with it. They’ll be the masters of their own inventions, but slaves to those who know how to make it reach the masses. A greater good can only be achieved if a product reaches those truly in need of it, efficiently. There is no use or honor in creating a life-saving product which is functional only on papers. They will be like a loaded gun, with no trigger. Course curriculums should teach a biotechnology student to always look forward to being self-sufficient, have a plan to not just produce, but to produce and pack and present to the table of the needy. Teachers should be all encompassing units, not just scribes who translate words into monotonous lab practices, that is they should encourage a student to look beyond the next exams, to how a particular chapter holds potential to save mankind decades into the future. The key lies in proper orientation and guidance, and most importantly, factually leading the students to believe that, biotechnology is, indeed the future, the boom is a real thing and the $100 billion dream is not impossible. After all, it is the third