CHENNAI: Centre for Innovation (CFI), a
student-run innovation lab at IIT-Madras, is running an initiative called
Nirmaan, a mock incubator to support students with entrepreneurial interests by
providing them a riskfree environment to develop their ideas and shielding them
from financial pressures through seed funding. Mahesh Panchagnula, adviser of
co-curricular at IIT Madras, said that though CFI's motto is "Walk in with
an idea, walk out with a product", right now the students build a
prototype and leave it at that. Through Nirmaan, they aim to make students work
on improving their prototype so that at the end of their college stint they are
ready with a marketable product.
Twenty-nine teams and projects are now part of Nirmaan after a registration and
selection process in September. The seed funding of 2 lakh per team is being
provided as per requirement and the progress of ideas is being reviewed by a
faculty team. The funds come from alumni grants, corporate sponsors and
institute funds.
Sai Gole, a student manager at CFI and also a
member of Nirmaan, said the idea is to make it easier for student ventures to
enter the startup ecosystem outside the college by reducing a few steps in the
process. "With a relatively mature product and a network of mentors
already with them, it is easier for the student entrepreneurs to approach
incubators and investors," Gole said. She added that almost six startup
teams that were part of CFI were able to get incubation at IIT Madras'
incubation cell.
The 29 teams which are part of Nirmaan are
working on a variety of in novative products ranging from a lightbased wearable
that is an alternative to alarm clocks to portable paper strip tests to detect
milk adulteration. Student managers of CFI are also planning to approach the
faculty and students of other colleges to explain the concept of Nirmaan and
two institutions have already expressed interest in the idea.
IIT Madras started CFI in 2008
with funds donated by the 1981 batch during their silver jubilee reunion. While CFI's clubs
had around 500 student members in 2008, it now boasts of almost 1,300 student
members showing the increase in a culture of innovation and entrepreneurship
among the institute's students.
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