A peek into start-up incubation drive of India's next-rung campuses

Many enterprises with formidable products have come from the country's deeper regions and have received parenting at lesser-known institutes

In 2019, a smart chess board became one of the biggest crowd-funded products in India, raising over $1 million from around the country through crowd-funding platforms. Square Off, the smart chess board that would make a counter move automatically against a human player, is an innovation by InfiVention Technologies which has been incubated at not an IIM or an IIT but at the Somaiya Trust-backed Research Innovation Incubation Design Laboratory Foundation (riidl).

Contrary to popular belief, entrepreneurship cells and start-up incubators at not just top tiered IITs and IIMs but at mid-tiered campuses and regions are also making a mark, churning