The Indian Institute of Technology (IIT-Madras) and Confederation of Indian Industry (CII) signed a MoU on August 31, 2019 at Hyderabad and are going to collaborate to promote innovative green startups across the country.
This initiative will bring the academia and industry together to create deep-tech and disruptive research ideas and help start-ups gain industry access for pilot demonstrations of their cleantech ideas.
Gopalakrishnan-Deshpande Centre for Innovation and Entrepreneurship (GDC), Indian Institute of Technology Madras and CII- Sohrabji Green Business Centre (CII-Godrej GBC) has come together to nurture and promote innovative green startups on the occasion of the 15th anniversary of the CII – Sohrabji Godrej Green Business Centre.
This collaboration will facilitate novel research ideas and innovative ventures in the cleantech space that would be trained and mentored by GDC at various academic institutions across India, and enabling the startups so created in reaching out to industry for networking and business opportunities as they seek to scale.
The key objectives of this collaboration include:
- The Collaboration will enable startup teams in GDC’s programmes from all over India to discuss their innovative ideas in the cleantech space with established industry players in their initiatives for Customer discovery and business model design.
- It will facilitate the engagement of start-up teams from GDC with leaders in the cleantech industry to validate their Prototypes, Minimal Viable Products, and implement pilot studies as may be required in their quest for scaling up.
- Connecting established players in the cleantech industry with young and talented entrepreneurs from the best research institutions across India and familiarising themselves with cutting-edge and disruptive technologies of tomorrow.
R. Raghuttama Rao, Chief Executive Officer, GDC – IIT Madras, said:
“Our experience is that start-ups in the Cleantech and Green businesses form 20-25% of the disruptive ideas emanating the research labs of IITs and other institutions.”
The MoU with CII will enable the young researchers and entrepreneurs to validate their ideas and assumptions with experienced industry veterans and thereby helping in creating more robust start-ups.
Capacity-building programmes for Cleantech entrepreneurs being mentored by GDC will also be conducted focussing on industry trends and requirements
Mr Jamshyd N Godrej, Chairman, CII- Godrej GBC, said:
There is so much to be done with the climate challenges that the world is facing today. The need of the hour is to design and develop models, which are ecologically superior and economically viable.
Green entrepreneurs and start-ups have an important role in addressing ecological issues and concerns and this MoU will facilitate the same, highlighted Godrej.