I-NCUBATE, IIT-M’s start-up programme completes fourth cohort

The finale of cohort 4 was held at IIT Madras campus. The fourth cohort comprised teams working on deep-tech ideas from diverse areas including AI, healthcare, environment science, material science, logistics and building materials. Including this cohort, GDC has now successfully completed four cohorts of I-NCUBATE, benefitting about 40 start-up teams and enhancing the entrepreneurial capabilities of over 200 participants from multiple institutions including IIT Madras, IIT Bombay, Jawaharlal Institute of Postgraduate Medical Education and Research (JIPMER), Puducherry and Swinburne University of Technology, Australia.

Addressing the gathering, chief guest K Vijay Raghavan, Principal Scientific Adviser to the Government of India said, “I am impressed by the initiatives of the Gopalakrishnan-Deshpande Centre in strengthening the lab to market movement through deep-tech start-ups. This is critical in creating a robust ecosystem for innovation and entrepreneurship that the government is keen to develop. I understand that GDC intends to scale the I-NCUBATE program and establish world class nodes of innovation, which aligns with the government’s vision of making India a global innovation hub.”

I-NCUBATE is an eight-week program during which selected teams, each comprising a faculty lead, an entrepreneur lead, entrepreneur team and a mentor, come together as a cohort under the GDC umbrella and go through a customer discovery exercise with their respective business ideas. All the teams were unanimous in their appreciation of the transformative experience and learning that I-NCUBATE has provided them with during their entrepreneurial journey.

The programme is designed to have several outcomes that includes enabling a team to gain a deep understanding of the customer needs based on first-hand evidence obtained from customers to take the idea to next stage.