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In a recent report, it was highlighted that the maximum number of innovative and promising ideas for startups come from candidates belonging to the tier 2 and tier 3 cities of India. The data is based on the India Innovation Challenge Design Contest administered by NRSCEL, IIM Bangalore.
Like every year, Texas Instruments (TI) in collaboration with NS Raghavan Centre for Entrepreneurial Learning (NRSCEL) at IIM Bangalore has announced the India Innovation Challenge Design Contest 2018. As a part of the challenge, the partners, namely, Department of Science and Technology (DST) and Texas Instruments will be together granting a sum of Rs. 8.2 crores to offer support to the qualifying teams. This will also include the seed fund of Rs. 20 lakhs each which will be granted to top 10 teams.
According to the data which was collected from previous years participation intake, it was found that about 90% of the 30 teams that took part in the India Innovation Challenge Design Contest were from tier two and tier three cities.
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Sanjay Srivastava, Director at Texas Instruments India University Program said that when the programme was launched earlier, there were very few registrations that were received. He elaborated that after the launch of the India Innovation Challenge Design Content (IICDC), the number of registrations hiked and numbers have since then been constantly increasing. Over 11,000 students registered for the competition in 2016 and 2017. Further, most of them belonged to small towns of Arunachal Pradesh, Kerala, Jammu and Kashmir and Karnataka.
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Anita Gupta, Advisor and Associate Head atDST informed that the government is ready to invest in innovative ideas and is willingly ready to connect them with incubation partners. She was also of the opinion when participants come to IIM Bangalore's NRSCEL, they get to meet mentors and business support systems, ultimately benefitting them hugely. The exposure at the centre also increases their employability, she said.
Suresh Bhagavatula, Chair and Professor ofNRSCEL (IIM Bangalore) said that the competition is one of a kind that focuses on providing participants with knowledge that is necessary to come up with innovative ideas. The competition is also a platform for anyone who wishes to challenge the norms and make their work market-ready.
With inputs from TOI
