IIT Madras targets incubating 100 startups across various sectors in 2024

Recognised as one of the top deep-tech start-up ecosystems in India, the IIT Madras Incubation Cell (IITMIC) is institute's umbrella body for nurturing, supporting, and overseeing various innovation

The Indian Institute of Technology Madras (IIT Madras) said on Tuesday that it is targeting incubating at least 100 startups across various sectors in 2024.

Recognised as one of the top deep-tech start-up ecosystems in India, the IIT Madras Incubation Cell (IITMIC) is the institute’s umbrella body for nurturing, supporting, and overseeing various innovation and entrepreneurship projects.

“IIT Madras saw a lot of ambitions realised during 2023. In the past year, we took up several important projects including the IITM Zanzibar Campus, which became the first-ever IIT to be established overseas, launched a Department of Medical Sciences and Technology, and are aspiring to do many more things in this direction. We are also looking forward to launching a new school on interdisciplinary sciences. It is very important as today, we are moving towards interdisciplinary education. We also want to close this financial year with the maximum number of projects,” said V Kamakoti, Director, IIT Madras.

Kamakoti added, “We are also looking at starting 100 start-ups in 2024. We are also seeing a lot of interesting technologies coming up through Hyperloop start-up, ePlane, Agnikul Cosmos, and Mindgrove Technologies, all of which are IIT Madras-incubated start-ups. These start-ups will deliver products, which will be of great national importance.”

In 2023, IIT Madras became the first-ever IIT to launch a campus in a foreign country. While initially, the Institute will offer BS and MTech programmes in Data Science and Artificial Intelligence, more academic programmes will be offered in the coming year. In the first batch at IITM Zanzibar, students from Zanzibar, mainland Tanzania, Nepal, and India have been admitted with 40 per cent of the students being women.

“For 2024, we have a lot more exciting initiatives and socially relevant projects that would greatly benefit the nation. We are looking at closing this financial year (31st March 2024) with 366 patents. We will try our best to see one patent a day. It is a matter of great pride at IIT Madras that we do a lot more innovation,” he added.