Multi-way partnership to extend India Innovation Growth Program

Department of Science and Technology has collaborated with Tata Trusts and Lockheed Martin to provide seed capital and mentoring to social enterprises as an extension of the India Innovation Growth Program which was started by the Government of India in 2007. The India Innovation Growth Program 2.0 will select innovators across social and industrial sectors and provide them the opportunity to accelerate their proof of concepts to a sustainable product or service and to contribute to the government’s evolving industrial strategy and focus on the “Start-Up India” initiative.

The first version of the program helped startups in product commercialization area, and offered inputs to develop intellectual property of the selected enterprises. Harkesh Mittal, program head of innovation, entrepreneurship and tech commercialization at Department of Science and Technology also said that “The cumulative spend on the program over a period of ten years was $10 million, demonstrating the value that we were able to create for the startups which went on to capture market share in several multiples of that spend”.

The new program aims to provide financial support to social enterprises which didn’t get that under the previous version. Funds allocated for the second version are about $2 million per year for the first three years.