IIT Madras To Set Up INR 100 Cr ‘Innovation and Entrepreneurship Fund’ For Startups

The Indian Institute of Technology Madras (IIT-M) will create an INR 100 Cr Innovation and Entrepreneurship fund to support students and faculty’s efforts to set up startups.

Further, IIT-M is looking to elevate the rank of at least five Centers of Excellence (CoE) to the top three in the globe, in their respective sectors, PTI reported. 

“These were among the top goals, the institute has set for itself in the strategic plan for the period 2022-27. The targets envisioned include creating an institute with a diversified group of faculty, students and staff, pursuing nationally relevant and internationally recognised basic and translational research,” IIT-M said in a press statement. 

Speaking about IIT-M’s strategic plan for the period 2022-27, Pawan K Goenka, chairman of board of governors at IIT Madras, said the strategic plan will usher in the next phase of the institute’s quest towards global excellence. He further informed that the institute is looking to introduce new programmes in the next five years. And, as per Goenka, by the end of 2027, the institute will be able to develop infrastructure to support such programmes. 

“In the next five years, we would like to realise an IIT Madras with a diversified group of faculty, students and staff actively pursuing nationally relevant and internationally-recognised fundamental and translational research. As part of this vision, we would like to have students from all parts of India, especially rural India to be associated with them,” said V Kamakoti, director of IIT-M.

The institute will roll out hybrid and online postgraduate programmes, and multidisciplinary PG programmes in various areas during 2022-27 period. It plans to launch programmes in health policy studies, computational linguistics, disability studies, environmental, digital and medical humanities. 

These announcements have come at a time when Indian academic institutes have started encouraging students and faculties to set up startups while studying. Recently, the AIIMS-Delhi administration announced plans of rolling out a startup policy for its medical students.

To promote entrepreneurship among medical students, AIIMS-Delhi will be joining hands with other Indian academic institutes such as the Indian Institutes of Technology, Indian Institutes of Management, and Indian School of Business (ISB). Besides this, it will also associate with large corporates including McKinsey, Boston Consulting Group and Bain & Company to provide business management exposure to medical graduates. 

Apart from this, in 2022, different state governments formed startup hubs in their respectives regions to shore up the startup ecosystem.

Further, we have seen Delhi, Madhya Pradesh and Arunachal Pradesh introducing startup policies in the recent past, while states such as Uttar Pradesh and Tamil Nadu revamped their respective startup policies.