IIT Madras centre gets international award

The centre has been successful in designing and rolling out programs that stimulate innovation and entrepreneurship in IIT Madras and other STEM institutions

The Indian Institute of Technology Madras (IIT-M) Gopalakrishnan-Deshpande Centre for Innovation and Entrepreneurship (GDC) recently won an international award for ‘Exemplary Practice in Technology Commercialisation’ at an event in the US.

Started by the Deshpande Foundation and the University of Massachusetts Lowell in 2012, the ‘Deshpande Symposium on Innovation and Entrepreneurship in Higher Education’ brings together academics, policy planners, and practitioners to discuss best practices in integrating entrepreneurship throughout their college and university communities.

The awards committee of the Deshpande Symposium observed that the “Gopalakrishnan-Deshpande Center at IIT-M best exemplified the spirit of the award with the breadth of programs that cover the lifecycle of a startup from idea to scale up as well as its national aspirations.”

“GDC has been successful in designing and rolling out programs that stimulate innovation and entrepreneurship in IIT Madras and other STEM institutions. In India, less than 2 per cent of academics commercialise their research, mainly due to a lack of guidance and role models in this difficult space,” Prof Krishnan Balasubramanian, IIT-M, said.

The GDC was established in IIT Madras in 2017 by the philanthropic contributions of IIT Madras’ illustrious alumni, Dr Gururaj Deshpande, Jaishree Deshpande, and Kris Gopalakrishnan.

Structured as a not-for-profit initiative, GDC’s charter is to work with STEM colleges across India to help faculty, researchers, students, and budding entrepreneurs commercialise their research-based ideas that have the potential to positively impact society at scale and improve people’s lives, the institute said.

Raghuttama Rao, Chief Executive Officer, GDC-IIT Madras, said the award is truly an honour for the Centre as it is an independent validation of our commitment to our mission of catalysing commercialisation of STEM research in India by way of deep-tech startups.

“Over a billion people in India face severe socio-economic challenges that need hi-technology solutions at affordable prices for which internationally developed innovations are unsuitable. The GDC aims to bridge this gap by building the capabilities of Indian researchers and entrepreneurs through its programs- I-NCUBATE, I-NSPIRE, and I-GNITE,” he added.