DST, Intel India and SINE-IIT Bombay tie-up for hardware, systems start-ups

Department of Science and Technology (DST), Government of India, Intel Technology India Pvt. Ltd (Intel India), and Society for Innovation and Entrepreneurship (SINE), IIT Bombay announced their collaboration to launch the collaborative incubation program for Hardware and Systems Startups.

This is a unique program wherein the industry, academia and Government have come together to support hardware and systems-based start-ups in the country through mentoring, training, lab facilities, hardware kits, prototyping, business services, funding amongst others.

The Program will address gaps in the hardware and systems start-up ecosystem that companies face in product design, development, commercialization, and creating scale for their solutions.

DST, Intel India and SINE aim to support up to 20 start-ups under this program, and the call for applications for the first batch will be announced in early August 2016.

During the year-long Program, start-ups will be supported for six months on-site at SINE, IIT, Bombay or Intel India, Bengaluru.

After a period of six months, the start-ups' solutions will be showcased to investors and industry players at a demo day, post which, the Program will extend virtual support for another six months.

Participating start-ups will be incubated through intensive training periods, one-on-one mentoring, technology related support from Intel experts, business service support from SINE, as well as prototyping and manufacturing support.

Intel India will build capacities through mentors, and provide technology related support for production and facilitate ideation, design thinking, prototyping workshops and manufacturing support through industry experts.

Society for Innovation and Entrepreneurship (SINE) is the business incubator at IIT Bombay, and supports technology start-ups that are based on products or intellectual property. It has been supporting start-ups since 2004 and has so far supported more than 80 starts-ups.

Majority of SINE supported star-ups have become revenue generating, with several having reached Rs. 50 to 100 crore in revenue and many start-ups having raised multiple rounds of funding.

Amongst a few initiatives, Intel India has been at the forefront of enabling innovations and entrepreneurship among students, professionals, researchers and entrepreneurs.

The company has been driving multiple interventions, including its flagship program Intel-DST Innovative for Digital India Challenge, which has helped enable six entrepreneurs to change their ideas into actual market solutions, the Intel India Maker Lab, the Atal Tinkering Laboratories, Academia engagements with 200+ engineering institutes and incubator centers, the set-up of 100 Internet of Things (IoT) centers across universities that promote IoT capacity building, design thinking, prototyping and fabrication, among other projects.