IIM-A, IIT-Delhi join hands to help small entrepreneurs

Incubating companies will benefit from the alliance.

The Indian Institute of Technology, Delhi (IIT-Delhi) and the Indian Institute of Management, Ahmedabad (IIM-Ahmedabad) on Monday signed a memorandum of understanding (MoU) to share their expertise and promote incubating companies.

The two premier institutions will work jointly to provide support in areas related to technology-based innovation in product design and development.

While the Centre for Innovation, Incubation and Entrepreneurship (CIIE), which has been handling issues regarding incubation and small entrepreneurs, will take the cause further after the MoU, it will be the Foundation for Innovation and Technology Transfer (FITT), an organisation similar to the CIIE, that will liaise for IIT-Delhi.

AK Sengupta, managing director of the FITT, explained that though IIT-Delhi had the Technology Business Incubation Unit (TBIU), which provided technical expertise to incubating companies, what was sorely lacking was management expertise.

"Signing the MoU with IIM-Ahmedabad will help the TBIU give birth to more corporate entities that are strong in both technical and management knowledge," added Sengupta.

On the other hand, the CIIE, the entity under IIM-Ahmedabad, will get technical expertise from IIT-Delhi.

"The team effort will include forays into design, test marketing, management support in raising resources, business plans, market surveys, supply chain management, physical facilities and mentoring support from FITT and IIT-Delhi for the incubatees of CIIE at IIM-Ahmedabad and vice-versa. IIM-Ahmedabad will be represented by a coordinator, who will liase at all times with a coordinator designated by IIT-Delhi for enquiries, proposals, services and all other interactions between the two institutions," stated the MoU.

"There will be a very significant level of synergy between the two institutes. It is the time in India that two such institutes have joined hands for such a big cause as we are collaborating to share common infrastructure and intellectual assets," said Somnath Chatterjee, senior faculty member of IIM-Ahmedabad.

The commercial aspects and intellectual property rights (IPR) ownership will be decided on a case-to-case basis, and could also be established as per the time and effort out into a joint project.