India is at a highly advantageous position today with an increasing number of startups, year after year. Accent on innovation has increased and hearteningly, most entrepreneurs are embracing this change. They are gradually shifting their stance from profit making to innovation and research, in order to deliver products and services that match global standards. In this space, Business Incubators have come to play a significant role. The Technology Business Incubator ‘Centre for Advancing & Launching Enterprises (CrAdLE)’, hosted at EDII, is catalysed and supported by National Science and Technology Entrepreneurship Development Board, DST, Govt. of India. Till date, the TBI has incubated 79 startups.

Some of the significant activities undertaken in the last three months, include:

1) A panel discussion was organized on ‘RISING CAPITAL: DOUBLE-EDGED SWORD’. The panellists included Shri Vinod Agarwal, Founder, Arunaya Organics Pvt. Ltd & Former Chairman, Confederation of Indian Industry (CII), Gujarat State Council; Shri Mihir Joshi, CEO Gujarat- Venture Finance Ltd; Shri Yash Shah, Co-Founder & CEO-Clientjoy and Shri Abhishek Jain, Co-founder-Naapbooks on various dynamics of running a startup.

2) An online ‘CAPACITY DEVELOPMENT PROGRAM FOR INCUBATION ECOSYSTEM ENABLERS’ was organized during 31st January to 3rd February 2022. It was attended by CEOs & Incubation Managers across India. The event was graced by Dr. Sunil Shukla Director-General EDII and speakers including Ms. Deepanwita Chattopadhyay, Chairman & CEO, IKP Knowledge Park; Dr. Abha Rishi, CEO, Atal Incubation Centre-BIMTECH; Mr. Chintan Bakshi, Partner in Incubation at CIIE.CO; Mr. Rahul Patel, Vice-President (Strategic Initiatives) at Startup Incubaton and Innovation Centre, IIT Kanpur; Mr. Sharukh Taraporewala, Head-Partnerships & Communication, Corporate Social Responsibility, HDFC Bank Ltd.; Ms. Priyanka Sharma, CSR Consultant Associated with T-hub; Mr. Yashwant Dev Panwar, Scientist for Patent Facilitating Centre (PFC) of Technology Information Forecasting and Assessment Council (TIFAC); Mr. Yamini Bhushan Pandey, Tech Startup Founder (Y Combinator Startup School Graduate); Mr. Hardik Maniar, Certified Chartered Accountant (CA); Mr. Ashutosh Mayank, Leading the digital and innovation aspects at HDFC Capital; Mr. Prajakt Raut, Founder of Applyifi; Ms. Nemessisa Ujjain, Project Director-Innovation at Hunch Circle Pvt. Ltd; Dr. Subhrangsu Sanyal, CEO of IIM Calcutta Innovation Park; Dr. A. Balachandran, Senior General Manager, VIT-Technology Business Incubator (VIT-TBI); Dr. R M P Jawahar, Executive Director, TREC-STEP (Tiruchi Regional Engineering College – Science and Technology Entrepreneurs Park) and Mr. H. K. Mittal, Former Head NSTEDB, DST and Distinguished Faculty, EDII.

The incubator organised sessions on Entrepreneurship Skills, Attitude & Behaviour Development; Achieving Problems Solutions Fit & Product-Market Fit among several other related areas to ensure that the startups incubated at CrAdLE sail through without any hiccups at any point in their entrepreneurial journey.