Those with innovative business plans will now be able to realise their dreams as the Delhi University is inviting such proposals, to help these ideas to transform into business models, till August 6.
In partnership with Ministry of Micro Small and Medium Enterprises which will provide funding to the projects, the Delhi University’s Cluster Innovation Centre (CIC) had established ‘DUCIC Technology Business Incubator’ in January this year. It was introduced to help ‘innovators’ to turn their ideas into business solutions by providing funds, work environment and mentorship to accelerate the growth of high-potential startups.
“As per our agreement with MSME, we provide laboratory or workshop facilities and other infrastructural as well as mentorship assistance to the selected incubatees in a PPP model,” CIC’s Director Madan Mohan Chaturvedi said. “The incubatee is supposed to contribute 15 per cent of the cost of incubation for leading to a micro-scale company or 25 per cent of the cost of incubation for leading to a small scale start-up,” he said. “We are inviting proposals from innovators/entrepreneurs for the second phase. In the pilot phase, we had selected 10 proposals and eight of them finally got approved by MSME and are underway,” he added.
Though the programme is aimed at fostering a proactive community of entrepreneurs on campus, it is open for non-DU candidates as well. “We will encourage more DU students to come up with innovations but the incubation centre is open for everyone who has an innovative idea,” Chaturvedi said. Elaborating on the funding involved for each project, he said, “The funding ranges between Rs 4 lakh-Rs 8 lakh for each selected project. There are proposals to increase it up to Rs 12 lakh, but MSME is still considering it.” “We encourage the incubatees to try out their innovative ideas (processes and/or products) at the laboratory or workshop
stage and beyond, to carry forward the idea from its mere conception to know how and then to do-how stage,” he said.