BHUBANESWAR: The IIT-Bhubaneswar will set up an incubation centre on its campus this year for students to develop their entrepreneurial ideas and startups. The centre will be ready by the new academic session of 2016-17.
Informing this to mediapersons during the golden jubilee celebration of College of Agricultural Engineering and Technology (CAET) of OUAT here on Monday, IIT Director RV Raja Kumar said students passing from the institution can stay back on campus for a period of two years and develop their entrepreneurial ideas at the incubation centre.
Farm machinery and food services will be one of the focus areas in the centre.
The IIT Director said the institution has this year entered into a collaboration with CAET for its ongoing research project to improve ground water/moisture retention in agriculture land.
For the project titled ‘Improving Ground Water Level and Quality in Eastern India for Agriculture’, both CAET and IIT have adopted three villages in Banki block of Cuttack district where solar power sensor boards have been installed to calculate changing pattern of soil moisture according to the temperature.
Over a dozen PhD students of CAET are working on the project that is being funded by the IT Research Academy (ITRA), a national programme under Ministry of Communications and Information Technology (MCIT). While the entire project cost is around Rs 3.5 crore, this year, the Central Government has sanctioned Rs 1.2 crore for IIT-Bhubaneswar and and Rs 41 lakh for CAET.