With efforts to encourage commercial production of innovative products in areas such as biotechnology, internet of things, and nano technology, about 30 % companies at the technology business incubators in the country are in such high-end technologies, Harkesh Mittal, advisor and head of National Science and Technology Entrepreneurship Development Board (NSTEDB), told presspersons here on Monday.

He inaugurated here the PSG Nanotech Research, Innovation, and Incubation Centre, which is a collaboration of the PSG Institute of Advanced Studies, PSG College of Technology, and PSG-STEP and is supported by the NSTEDB.

This is the only incubation centre so far for nano technology and it will focus on smart textiles, healthcare, renewable energy, and plastic electronics.

The area of nano technology is new and lot of research is happening in this field. There is a need for transfer of technology, taking ideas to the market. The incubator will support such an effort, he said.

The NSTEDB aims to start 20 new technology business incubators every year in different verticals.

There are 110 technology business incubators in the country and 50 of these give seed support to the incubatees. The NSTEDB gives ₹10 crore to each of these incubators and the amount is disbursed as loan or equity in two to three years. The National Initiative for Developing and Harnessing Innovations was launched last year. Under this initiative, an incubator gets seed support, has the scope to upscale, and will get support to covert ideas into prototypes.

PSG STEP will launch shortly an entrepreneurial residential programme. It is among the 10 incubators in the country that will offer fellowship for a year to students who are entrepreneurs. A student can receive up to ₹30,000 a month. Each incubator will get ₹36 lakh a year to extend this support, he said.

It will also launch a programme to give up to ₹10 lakh as grant to convert ideas into prototypes (Promoting and Accelerating Young and Aspiring Innovators and Start Ups). About 10 innovators will receive the support every year and this project is sanctioned for 10 incubators this year. The incubator will get ₹1.2 crore support from the Department of Science and Technology to set up a lab and ₹20 lakh to buy raw materials.

According to K Suresh Kumar, General Manager of PSG STEP, the nano tech centre here is established at a total cost of ₹15 crore. While ₹7.5 crore is provided by the DST, the rest is from the PSG Institute.

It will support 10 incubatees for a maximum of five years each. Entrepreneurs can come with their own projects or take up products developed by researchers at PSG Institute of Advanced Studies, he said.

source: http://www.thehindu.com / The Hindu / Home> News> Cities> Coimbatore / by Special Correspondent / Coimbatore – February 28th, 2017