JNU’s Incubation Centre to Help Convert Faculty Projects into Commercial Ventures
- JNU planning to start its incubation centre.
- It aims to generate startup opportunities by translating projects into ventures.
- Job opportunities will be created for students.
The Jawaharlal Nehru University is planning to start its own incubation centre within a period of three months with an aim of translating the research projects made by its faculty members into commercial ventures so that there is an opportunity for startups to be born out of it.
Faculty members came up with 30 proposals out of which eight projects have been shortlisted for incubation. Each of these projects will be given an amount of Rs. 5 lakh to be utilized for its further development.
These incubation centres will tie- up with various investors and technical experts so that proper support and funding can be provided to the exceptional projects.
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According to the sources, two venture capitalists have shown interest in associating themselves with the JNU Incubation Centre.
The University is planning to have equities in those startups that can do well commercially and thus can help the institute in funding more of such ideas at its incubation centre.
By August, eight such projects will get into the incubation centre. Also, students’ projects will also be included in the incubation centre gradually.
The range of eight projects that are selected in the first phase are from health sciences to language translation platforms. The projects selected for incubation centre will get all kinds of support, starting from the development stage to marketing the product. The target is to incubate 20 projects at a time.
Also Read: Programme Launched by IIT Bombay to Encourage Engineering Colleges to Incubate Startups
The teachers will be allowed to take leaves or be given a sabbatical to get involved in projects which successfully turn into startups on a consultancy basis. Job opportunities will also be created for students through these startups.
Additionally, teachers will be able to apply for IPRs for their projects. Students could later also become co-founders or even board members of such startups.