Indian Institute of Information Technology and Management-Kerala (IIITM-K), located at Technopark, has set up a Centre for Innovation and Technology Incubation (CITI) for nurturing innovations of students and youngsters and to promote entrepreneurial culture.
CITI is open for IIITM-K students, new entrepreneurs and also industry-academia collaboration. The facility aims to promote innovation and entrepreneurship by converting and translating innovative and creative ideas of young minds in various disciplines of science and engineering to achieve excellence in research, products, processes and services.
Two companies - Aeistir Technologies Ltd and Veuston Technologies Pvt Ltd - have started functioning at IIITM-K as part of CITI. While Veuston Technologies handles e-commerce business, Aeistir Technologies operates in the hospital management sector.
Inaugurating the facility the other day, IIITM-K Director Rajasree M S hoped that CITI will gradually transform as the common platform of IIITM-K for all its entrepreneurial incubation ventures. She urged the young entrepreneurs to utilise the rich expertise and resources available in the institute to their best advantage to accomplish their business dreams.
The CITI centre was established under the leadership of Dr Elizabeth Sherly, Professor, IIITM-K. In her brief introductory remarks, Dr Sherly pointed out that IIITM-K has been working on setting up of incubation centres since 2000. ‘’CITI has an ambitious development future with scope for expanded incubation facilities when IIITM-K moves to the new campus,’’ she said.
Three schemes have also been launched under CITI - Student Entrepreneurship Scheme, New Entrepreneurship Scheme and Industry-Academia Collaboration Scheme.
The Student Entrepreneurship Scheme helps start-up companies to do pre-operative work and commence product, technology, research and development by students. Ongoing students can come up with prototypes during their study period which will earn them grace marks.
New Entrepreneurship Scheme enables creation of an environment for interested people to initiate product, technology, research and development with necessary infrastructure, support and mentoring.
The Industry-Academia Collaboration Scheme aims at fostering industry-academia linkage. It also facilitates industries to test, conduct research and carry out pilot projects to benefit their business in a low cost manner.