IIHS trying to sow seeds of entrepreneurship too
The Indian Institute of Human Settlements (IIHS), an institution offering courses for betterment of settlements, is trying to continue its incubation programme for finding concrete ideas to improve urban centres.
The IIHS has a three-year ongoing incubation programme funded by the Rockefeller Foundation. The institute holds competitions for the youth to put forward their ideas that would help transform the urban landscape. IIHS will subsidise the individual and also organise bank loans for them. The institute holds a competitive exam for the young to put together an idea. The san-kranti student urban challenge which was a component of the India Urban Conference 2011, was the first attempt at the same. The shortlisted were mentored by some of the well known practitioners and entrepreneurs to hone their proposals to change the city, town or neighbourhood where they are living or studying in.
An idea, which is under implementation, was that of providing free and simple tools to find your way through Mumbai, though SMS, on web and smartphone. “Now there is interest for the same from other cities like Hyderabad,” said Aromar Revi, director, IIHS.
The team which was from IIT-Bombay was hand-held by A Suryanarayanan, who is in charge of the incubation at IIHS. “We get you the money, you put your ideas,” said Suryanarayanan, adding “the application worked in Marathi, Gujarati, Hindi and English. We are helping them try and get it into a business. We will do all the running around for them.”
IIHS has roped in Suryanarayanan as Head of Operations who is also CFO at IIHS. He has been a serial entrepreneur in the healthcare industry who was involved with companies like Medybiz, Medi Assist and LifeKen. Prior to joining IIHS, he was the Chief Operating Officer of the N S Raghavan Centre for Entrepreneurial Learning (NSRCEL) at IIM, Bangalore, which also had a business incubator and a seed fund.
Depending on the success of the present programme, Suryanarayanan hopes that IIHS will be able to get more funding from Rockefeller Foundation to continue with the project.