ROURKELA: Software Technology Park of India (STPI) is all set to sign a Memorandum of Understanding (MoU) with Biju Patnaik University of Technology (BPUT), Rourkela, as its academic partner for the Industry 4.0 Centre of Entrepreneurship (CoE) initiative for promotion of startup activities.
As part of the pact, incubation centres, laboratories, mentor-connect network system and seed fund support system would be set up both at STPI, Bhubaneswar and BPUT with the latter acting as a satellite centre.
Sources said, the STPI has already formally roped in Rourkela Steel Plant (RSP) and NALCO as core industry partners. Soft launch of CoE would be made during Make in Odisha conclave next month and in the next five months, the facility would be fully operational.
“The CoE envisages a strong ecosystem for startups to harness innovations and create products for solving industrial problems. Also, BPUT as an academic partner, would help draw talented students and research fellows in pre-ideation stage for setting up startups,” said STPI jurisdictional director for Jharkhand and Bihar, Manas Panda.
The startups would help industries solve their problems by providing technological support obtained from the STPI and mentorship from the core industry partners.“The aim is to set up a collaborative and reliable mechanism to create a strong ecosystem for cooperation, mentorship, access to infrastructure and facilities, networking and funding for the startups to thrive and help create innovative and useful products to enhance industrial production and efficiency with increased automation,” Panda said.
BPUT vice-chancellor Prof CR Tripathy said the CoE would be of mutual benefits to all the stakeholders. “Rapid fundamental shifts are taking place in global production and supply network operations with ongoing automation through use of modern technology, large-scale machine-to-machine communication and the internet of things (IoT) among others,” Tripathy added.