IITM Incubation Cell (IITMIC), India’s leading Deep-tech Start-up hub, announced its partnership with SSN Incubation Foundation (SSN iFound), Chennai – the incubation & innovation wing supported by SSN College of Engineering. 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.
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 grassroots entrepreneurial talent by identifying, collaborating, and incubating startups from partner institutes/incubators in Tier 2, 3 & 4 cities.
As a first step in this direction, 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. IITMIC will also support SSN iFound in conducting training, motivational & experiential talks, and events to create excitement and strengthen its entrepreneurial ecosystem.
IITMIC and SSN iFound will also periodically select startups with the potential for co-incubation. Each co-incubatee will receive a host of value-added support including mentorship (technical & business), networking and training support, seed funding and connecting to angels/VCs, a ‘Startup Engine’ platform, incubation space and various business support services.
Prof. Ashok Jhunjhunwala, President – IIT Madras Research Park, IITM Incubation Cell & 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 grows 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 with 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 the creation of many more global success stories from an Indian perspective.”
