The Indian Institute of Technology (IIT) Madras Incubation Cell has announced its partnership with SSN Incubation Foundation (SSN iFound), Chennai. Through the partnership, IITMIC aims to support SSN iFound in developing an ecosystem that nurtures a culture of building things and provides incubation support to promising entrepreneurial ventures, said the institute.
“This collaboration also ties into IITMIC’s 10X initiative of Accelerated Incubation of achieving 1000 incubations by 2030, with the aim to strengthen India’s grassroot entrepreneurial talent by identifying, collaborating and incubating startups from partner institutes/incubators in tier 2, 3 & 4 cities,” reads the official notice.
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IITMIC will support SSN iFound in setting up ‘Build Club’– a student-only run club, shaped, and managed by them that aims to create a culture of building products among students. Training, motivational and experiential talks, and events to create excitement and strengthen its entrepreneurial ecosystem will be held.
IIT Madras will also periodically select startups with potential for co-incubation, it added. Each co-incubatee will receive a host of value-added support including mentorship (technical & business), networking and training support, seed funding and connect to angels/VCs, ‘Startup Engine’ platform, incubation space and various business support services.
Prof Ashok Jhunjhunwala, President – IIT Madras Research Park, IITM Incubation Cell and RTBI said: India needs young entrepreneurs more than ever before given their ability to contribute actively to economic development. We want to help them nurture this entrepreneurial curiosity at an early stage through “Build Clubs”, help grow their confidence in building products on their own, eventually incubate them formally and mentor them in solving India’s most pressing challenges. Through partnering with institutions like SSN, we believe that we can achieve this. We are looking forward to jointly nurturing the next-generation wealth creators and entrepreneurs to strengthen India’s startup ecosystem.”
Dr Kala Vijayakumar, Director, SSN Incubation Foundation added, “’We are delighted to partner with IIT Madras Incubation Cell, a proven leader and pioneer in the Indian incubation space, with highly successful technology start-ups. SSN Incubation Foundation was established with a vision to support budding entrepreneurs from concept-to-market by providing them the right platform and guidance to realise their start-up dreams. This MoU will enable us to leverage the mentor pool, infrastructure, networks and systems of IITMIC to create a world class innovation and entrepreneurship ecosystem at SSN. The synergy between these two institutions will aid creation of many more global success stories from an Indian perspective.”
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