Bhubaneswar, Jan. 14: The start-up centre at IIT, Bhubaneswar has selected 13 projects in the first year of its commencement.
The start-ups will gain from the mentoring support and guidance from the institute's experts. The selected start-ups will be provided a seed fund of Rs 2.5 lakh in phases. Facilitation of bank loan will also be provided.
The start-ups are expected to deliver working prototypes, models or services. They will also be required to get patents and copyrights for their innovation. While the new entities should be converted into registered firms, the established ones will have to be scaled up.
The selected start-ups include innovations in making the health care information available to patients, development of low-cost silica-based porous ceramic matrix composite, functional food, centralised railway library, electrical energy monitor and saver, a toy start-up, automatic billing and transacting smart shopping mall cart - all of them promoted by budding entrepreneurs from the state.
Institute director R.V. Raja Kumar inaugurated the centre on last June. The department of science and technology and the ministry of human resource development have funded the centre, established with a budget of Rs 1.50 crore.
"The centre's aim is to inculcate a culture of innovation-driven entrepreneurship in the state. It also aims to provide a platform for speedy commercialisation of technology developed by the new entrepreneurs. We aim to build a vibrant start-up ecosystem by establishing a network among academia, financial institutions, industries and other institutes," said the director.
Under the initiative, the institute has provided furnished and semi-furnished space, along with Internet, electricity and water facility, according to the entity's requirement. The selected individuals or teams have also been provided with accommodation facility. Besides the laboratory and workshop facilities, the start-ups have also been allowed to use the library.
In another development, the institute has set up an in-house technology incubator to encourage the students to take up entrepreneurship.
