From Our Special Correspondent
Daijiworld Media Network - Bengaluru
Bengaluru, Oct 31: As many as 19 Engineering and non-Engineering Colleges across Karnataka have been chosen by the State Government for funding under the New-Age Incubation Network (NAIN) programme under phase 1 & 2.
The State Government’s novel initiative, NAIN, was established under the Karnataka Start-up Policy for 2015-20 by the Department of Information Technology, Bio-Technology and S&T.
NAIN funding is aimed at helping the educational institutions to nurture an ecosystem for promoting entrepreneurship and innovation in Tier 2&3 cities in the State.
"We want our students to develop the entrepreneurial spirit. The NAIN funding is just a small step to encourage innovators to become successful entrepreneurs," said Karnataka’s IT/BT Minister Priyank Kharge.
The Minister said the Start-up policy and many other policy initiatives were part of the overall strategy to build a strong, progressive and vibrant Karnataka.
The State Government aims to include 50 educational institutions under the NAIN program during the Start-up Policy period of 2015-20, he said.
Gaurav Gupta, Principal Secretary, IT, BT & Science & Technology Department, explained that NAIN has funded a total of 283 projects so far with a grant support of up to Rs 3 lakh to each group.
Most of these groups have developed a working prototype thereby demonstrating the proof of concept. Some students groups incorporate a company and run it professionally. Till date 2 patents have been awarded and some are in pipeline, he said.
Each of the selected Colleges gets a funding support of Rs 40 lakh per annum from Government. The amount is split as Rs 30 lakh per student project and Rs 10 lakh per year towards operational expenses (OPEX FUND).
Usually up to 10 innovative projects are selected by each college, the industries experts and released for funding each year.
The students are expected to develop a prototype or to demonstrate the technology solution being suggested.
Under NAIN, Gupta said the students are encouraged to identify local problems and address them by using concepts of frugal innovation and develop appropriate technology-based solutions and working prototypes.
The mentors assigned to the students are expected to help them to evolve a suitable business model based on the chosen new technology with a view to think as entrepreneurs, he said.
The 9 Engineering Colleges selected for NAIN funding under Phase 1 are:
- JNN College of Engineering (Shivamogga),
- PDA College of Engineering (Kalaburagi),
- SDM College of Engineering & Technology, (Dharwad),
- Siddaganga Institute of Technology (Tumakuru),
- BLDEA’s VP Dr PGH College of Engineering &Technology (Vijapura), Basaveshwara Engineering College (Bagalakote),
- NMAM Institute of Technology (Nitte, Udupi),
- National Institute of Engineering (Mysuru); and
- KLS Gogte Institute of Technology (Belagavi)
The 10 Engineering Colleges selected for NAIN funding under Phase 2 are:
- Sri Jagadguru Chandra Shekaranatha Swamiji institute of technology (Chikkaballapura),
- Bapuji Institute of Engineering & Technology (Davangere),
- Sahyadri College of Engineering and Management (Mangalore),
- Mangalore Institute of Technology & Engineering (Moodabidri),
- Ghousia Engineering College (Ramanagara),
- Govt. First Grade College (Holenarasipura,),
- Govt. College Autonomous (Mandya),
- Sri MV Govt. Science College (Bhadravathi),
- Dharwad College of Agriculture (Vijayapura); and
- SBRR Mahajana First Grade College (Mysuru)
The NAIN Centres have Government funding available with them to regularly organise Ideathons, Hackathons, Entrepreneurship Boot Camps etc., Talks by Successful Entrepreneurs, Tech Workshops on areas like IoT (Internet of Things), Big Data Analytics, Cloud Computing, ESDM (Electronic Systems Design and Manufacturing), Bioinformatics etc., to provide access and awareness to budding entrepreneurs from our smaller towns and cities.
The process to initiate selection of colleges under Phase 3 has also started.