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Launching
of the SIDBI Incubation center
SIDBI Innovation and Incubation
Centre
With the boom in information technology and the
emergence of new areas like biotechnology, it is imperative that
a lot of entrepreneurial activities would follow. Moreover, with
the globalisation of Indian economy, even the traditional sector
is in immediate need of innovations and fresh technological inputs.
Emerging technological and knowledge-based ventures seek nurturing
of ideas from professionals for which one need to go beyond the
traditional venture capital activity. Such entrepreneurial ideas
have to be fostered and developed in a supportive environment before
they become attractive for venture capital. Hence the need for incubation
centres. Incubation centres enable technical entrepreneurs to conduct
their R&D programmes in a professional, friendly and supportive
atmosphere, while receiving the guidance that they need in the initial
phase.
An entrepreneur need not make any investment and
set-up facility to develop the idea. Instead he/she can use the
space and facilities of incubation centre to start the business.
Software professionals and technocrats returning from abroad could
also use a centre. Some of them come with project idea in hand,
but it takes considerable time to set up the operations. Such persons
can start their preliminary work and develop the idea from an incubator,
while simultaneously working on their own set-up.
Historically, such incubation centres in different
parts of the world have developed around academic institutes as
they can provide the right kind of mentoring & expertise required
to develop the entrepreneurial ideas in knowledge based sectors.
IIT Kanpur has set up “SIDBI Innovation and Incubation Centre” in
collaboration with Small Industries Development Bank of India (SIDBI)
to work closely with young entrepreneurs, mentor them, and to provide
them with requisite infrastructure, which will enable them to come
to a stage where they will have a viable business proposition. SIDBI
is the apex financial institution for the promotion, financing and
development of industries in the small-scale sector. It has recently
launched the National Programme on Innovation and Incubation for
Small Industries. SIDBI will provide Rs. 2.35 crores for the building
and infrastructure of the Centre and another Rs. 2 crores towards
the corpus for running the Centre.
The Centre has the mission to foster successful
entrepreneurs and develop industry in the knowledge and technology
based areas. It has started operating with an Incubatee already
registered, constituted primarily of IIT Kanpur alumni, and several
prospective incubatees with promising projects are in the process
of negotiations.
The three-tier organisation structure of the Centre
consists of an Apex Committee to guide its overall activities and
provide policy framework, an Advisory Committee to review the activities
of the Centre and monitor the projects periodically and a Faculty
Committee for the purpose of inputs from the expertise in different
fields.
The Apex Committee Includes
Director, IIT Kanpur; Mr. Pawan Nigam, Healtheon, USA; Mr. N Raman,
Chief General Manager, SIDBI;
Mr. N S Raghavan, Director, Syndicated Research, World Wide, Bangalore;
Mr. Abhay Bhushan, Mentor, Palo Alto, USA; Ms. Manju Sharma, Secretary,
Dept. of Bio-Techno- logy, New Delhi; Prof. P V Inderesan, Ex-Director,
IIT Madras; Mr. Sanjeev Shriya, Director, LML Ltd., Kanpur; Prof.
Ashok Jhunjhunwala, IIT Madras
The Advisory Committee includes
Dean, R&D, IIT Kanpur; MD, UP Financial Corpn., Kanpur; Head,
SIDBI, Kanpur; Mr. D. Durga Prasad, Organisation Design Consult-ing
and Research, Mumbai; Dr. Jayanta Chatterjee, Director, Strategy
Innovation Inc., Newport Beach, USA; Dr. A.K. Sengupta, MD, Foundation
for Innovation and Technology Transfer, IIT Delhi; Mr. Dipankar
Ganguli, D. Ganguly & Associates, Kanpur Mr. Vishnu Varshney,
President & CEO Gujarat Venture, Finance Ltd., Ahmedabad; Mr.
Prakash Kharwadkar, CMD, Corona Plus Industries Ltd., Kanpur;
Acceptance criteria for a project is that it should be an R &
D project based on an innovative technological idea that aims to
develop a product with sound business potential
The Centre provides primarily three kinds of services to a project:
1. Administrative support and office facilities.
2. Expertise of different type – legal, financial, business and
technical.
3. Commercialising support - market research, liaising with venture
capitalists, etc.
The Incubation Centre will have a building of its own. At present
it is operating in a temporary built-in area provided by the Institute.
For more information, please contact :
Dr. Rahul Varman
Dept. of Industrial and Management Engineering
IIT Kanpur – 208 016
Phone: (0512) 597979 / 597970
Fax: (0512) 590007
Email: varman@iitk.ac.in
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