Motivation
India is a country with a billion people and a million different challenges. Poor basic infrastructure (roads, electricity, water supply, waste management, etc.), stagnant agricultural productivity for a majority of small and medium farmers, quality primary education -- especially in rural areas, ensuring globally competitive higher education even in urban areas, building an effective public health system and more. Fortunately, many of these are being tackled by startups in India that are are working on innovative ideas and technologies to address many of the country's challenges, eventually hoping to ramp them up into successful, sustainable businesses.
These startups are making their own contribution to the complex solution that many of these complex problems need -- in addition and on an immediate level, they are helping in generating revenue, creating high-quality jobs and in overall development. Startups are leading the way to making a social change in the Indian setup while at the same time contributing significantly to the national economy.
India needs more entrepreneurs who can create jobs, spur the economy and enable more inclusive growth. The need of the hour is to foster innovative, entrepreneurial thinking.
The Indian Institute of Technology Madras (IITM) has been at the forefront of Indias technology revolution, leading with innovations in the fields of Engineering and Information and Communications Technologies. Located at Chennai, a leading hub for manufacturing and Information Technology in Asia today, IITM has developed a strong and sustainable relationship with the industry. The integrated institutional support for this relationship is evidenced by IITMs pioneering Centre for Industrial Consultancy and Sponsored Research (IC&SR), dedicated to nurturing and facilitating industrial interactions.
In recent times, IIT Madras has also been making a name for itself as an entrepreneurship hub as well. In fact, news reports have termed IIT Madras as 'India's Stanford'. Entrepreneurial ventures translating ideas from the academic research to bring practical benefits to communities have been supported from an early phase of IITMs activities.Without doubt, IIT Madras is one place where you can find professors to put you in touch with industries and real-world problems, co-founders who share your zeal and passion as well as senior mentors to guide you on your startup journey. You can read more about the innovation and incubation ecosystem at IIT Madras here.
- Could this challenge be turned into a successful entrepreneurial opportunity?
- What other entrepreneurial opportunities exist in this domain?
- Where can I know about the innovations that are already happening on this front?
- What would be the different costs of transforming a new technology into a market-ready product?
- How does one work out the price and the economics of the product?
- What are the potential markets for these new technologies?
- What are the bottlenecks and how does one create a presence?
A step by step process
IIT Madras along with its innovation/entrepreneurial/incubation eco-system partners, is aiming to conduct brainstorming workshops in the coming days to identify and popularize new, workable, sustainable ideas. We plan to do this in a step by step approach beginnging with understanding the challenges in key domain areas and then delving deeper into the following important aspects. Join us in this effort by participating and brainstorming.