Five innovations to be incubated at SPJIMR

Mihika Basu

The event which concluded on Thursday will now help five enterprises incubate at the institute. Elaborating, Ashim Sharma from SPJIMR said the event which is held in association with National Innovation Foundation (NIF) is an exercise that goes beyond typical discussions. “The teams had to choose between 67 innovations. We choose the stove because it addresses the problem of using cheap fuel as well as the problem of plastics and subsequent use from waste,” he said.

The idea behind Uddyam is to bridge the huge divide that exists today between innovators and entrepreneurs who can take these products to the market. One of the reasons, says the institute, is that often these innovators are based in rural areas and are not aware of the various factors involved in mass commercialisation of their products. Hence the event gives a platform to budding entrepreneurs and corporates looking for such products. Besides generating a new “model of poverty alleviation and providing employment”, it is an attempt to conserve resources and energy in every sector.

Accordingly, the five proposals chosen will be incubated at the institute’s incubation cell and a Rs 4 crore fund set up by NIF with the help of Small Industries Development Bank of India (SIDBI) will support these projects.

Sharma, whose team got the first prize at Uddyam, will build a business model around the stove targeted at slums and rural households. “Having fully gauged the potential market, we will have to consider issues like customers, marketing, creating a plant for manufacturing and the rollout stages,” he said. Accordingly, after Mumbai and other cities of Maharashtra, the product will be taken to Gujarat and Delhi. “For sustainability, stoves would require plastic regularly. So rag pickers will get us the polythene which will then be shred and distributed. Besides addressing a social cause, it’s a profitable business,” added Sharma.

Sreejith N G from NMIMS University whose team bagged the second prize will now like to take the product, which he describes as “nutritious and can act like a small but complete meal”, to the next level.

“We will now see how it can be adapted to the market and then go for a pilot project at a small scale,” he said.

Prior to the main event, a nationwide competition (Saakar) was conducted wherein participants had to work on real-life innovations provided by NIF. Based on the entries received, 15 were shortlisted for Uddyam. The top three teams were awarded cash prizes of Rs 20, 000 each.