Mumbai: IIT Bombay's Society for Innovation and Entrepreneurship (SINE) has launched a national Hub-and-Spoke initiative to strengthen India's startup incubation ecosystem through structured institutional collaboration, knowledge sharing and collective capacity building.
Nagpur has been identified as the first region under this initiative, marking the beginning of SINE's efforts to develop a collaborative and connected regional startup ecosystem, the Indian Institute of Technology Bombay said in a statement on Friday.
On October 12, IIT Bombay and SINE convened a stakeholder meeting at Visvesvaraya National Institute of Technology (VNIT) in Nagpur, which brought together representatives from 10 institutions and associated incubation organisations to deliberate on strengths, opportunities and challenges of the Nagpur startup ecosystem.
The meeting identified areas of collaboration and explored a shared roadmap for strengthening regional entrepreneurship.
"India's deep-tech ambitions require us to strengthen the pathways through which research capabilities across institutions and regions translate into entrepreneurial ventures. The Hub-and-Spoke initiative seeks to connect institutional strengths with incubation expertise, industry engagement and access to capital," Prof Milind Atrey, Deputy Director (ART), IIT Bombay said.
By bringing institutions together, we can create a stronger foundation for innovation, technology commercialisation and entrepreneurship across the country, Atrey added.
Building on the experience and insights gained from this initial regional engagement, SINE aims to progressively expand the Hub-and-Spoke model to other cities and states.
This expansion will be driven through collaborations with academic institutions, research organisations, technology business incubators, and other ecosystem stakeholders to foster strong, interconnected and thriving regional startup ecosystems.
The aim is to make quality incubation support, institutional knowledge, specialised infrastructure, industry connections and access to capital more widely available; particularly to promising technology and deep-tech ventures emerging outside the country's established startup centres.
"We believe that this experience can create a much greater impact when shared and strengthened through collaboration with other institutions," IIT Bombay Professor-in-Charge, SINE, Prof Nishant Sharma informed.
The Hub-and-Spoke initiative is an effort to take this forward in a structured manner, empowering existing incubators, connecting regional ecosystems and enabling promising startups to access capabilities and networks that may otherwise be beyond their reach, he said.
"Nagpur is our first step, and we look forward to building this model with institutions across the country," Sharma added.
This report was published from a wire feed. Apart from the headline, the EdexLive Desk has not edited the copy.