IIT-Madras to set up innovation, entrepreneurship fund to aid start-ups

The Indian Institute of Technology Madras (IIT-M) will be setting up an Innovation and Entrepreneurship fund of Rs 100 crore to support start-ups.

The premier city-based institute said it is also planning to ensure that at least five of its Centers of Excellence rank among the top three in the world in their respective fields. "IIT Madras is going to establish an Innovation and Entrepreneurship fund of Rs 100 Crore to support student and faculty's efforts to establish start-ups. These were among the top goals the institute has set for itself in the Strategic Plan for the Period 2022-27.

The targets envisioned include creating an institute with a diversified group of faculty, students and staff, pursuing nationally relevant and internationally recognised basic and translational research," it said. IIT-M said it has been developing and following strategic plans periodically for more than two decades now. "By the end of this plan period, the institute will have significantly upgraded and augmented its infrastructure to support its ambitious programmes.

The Discovery Campus, which is the satellite campus of IIT-M located about 36 km from main campus, will be home to an increasing number of specialised world-class research facilities," it said in a release. Prof V Kamakoti, Director of the institute, said, "in the next five years, we would like to realise an IIT Madras with a diversified group of faculty, students and staff actively pursuing nationally relevant and internationally-recognised fundamental and translational research.

As part of this vision, we would like to have students from all parts of India, especially rural India to be associated with," them. Speaking about the Strategic Plan 2022-27, Pawan K Goenka, Chairman, Board of Governors, IIT Madras, said it will usher in the next phase of the institution's quest towards global excellence. The institute is also planning new Programmes and Academic Outreach in the next five years.

They include introducing hybrid and online postgraduate programmes and launching multidisciplinary PG programmes in current areas such as health policy studies, computational linguistics, disability studies, environmental humanities, digital humanities and medical humanities, it added.