Mohali (Punjab), Dec 5 (IANS): The Lala Bahadur Chand Munjal Foundation on Thursday announced Hero Group and the Birmingham City University are collaborating to establish the Munjal BCU School of Innovation and Entrepreneurship (MBSI) to promote innovation and entrepreneurship in Punjab.

The project will come up in Ludhiana town and will cater to the needs of the business industrial sector of the state, Hero Enterprises Ltd Chairman Sunil Kant Munjal told the media at a side event of the Progressive Punjab Investors' Summit at Mohali near Chandigarh.

Higher education in Punjab finds itself at the crossroads with many students seeking to study and then immigrating to other countries in search of better opportunities, he said.

The proposed Munjal-BCU School of Innovation and Entrepreneurship (MBSI), which will be launched early 2020, could emerge as a gamechanger.

The MBSI plans to take a STEAM-oriented (Science, Technology, Engineering, Arts and Mathematics) approach to higher education.

Steam house, pioneered by Birmingham City University, is designed as a centre for innovation, research, and creative production where technology, art, and design are used to nurture innovation and creativity.

It is proposed to establish a MBSI in Ludhiana to meet the growing innovation needs of industrial enterprises in the state.

Punjab is home to around 50,000 SMEs spread across the clusters of Ludhiana, Amritsar, Jalandhar, Mohali, Patiala, Mandi and Gobindgarh.