ISRO Sets up Space Technology Incubation Centre at Agartala
The Indian Space Research Organisation (ISRO) today launched its first Technology Incubation Centre at the National Institute of Technology (NIT), Agartala, Tripura (In North East India)
“We have a capacity building program in our headquarters to widen the participation of academia and industry in space research. We don’t want ISRO to only grow vertically. Our responsibility is to horizontally expand ISRO to every nook and corner of the country,” said ISRO Chairman Dr K. Sivan.
There are three separate schemes in this program to expand ISRO horizontally.
ISRO is setting up six Technology Incubation Centres. The remaining five will come up at Jalandhar, Indore, Bhubaneswar, Nagpur and Trichy over the next six months. “Space technology incubation centres will be located where there are good academic institutions, industries and where there is no existing space activity,” said Dr K. Sivan.
ISRO is also in the process of setting up six Regional Academic Centres for Space in Jaipur, Banaras, Patna, Guwahati, Kurukshetra and Kanyakumari.
In order to tap the potential in lesser known universities across the country, ISRO will also establish chairs in six universities across India, which havw not been in the limelight so far.
“Electronics import even outpaces gold import in India. It is second only to oil import. The consumption of electronics is projected to reach $ 400 billion by 2020. Of this $ 300 billion worth of electronics will have to be imported. The hidden item dictating the economy is electronics import,” said Dr. Sivan. “Of the Rs. 10,600 crore sanctioned for around 40 vehicles 85–90% goes to the industry in India. The remaining 10% is electronics, most of which is currently imported,” he added.
“There’s a quantum jump in ISRO missions now. We need great strategies and a proactive approach from industries. We need industry to partner with us and also supply space-qualified resistors, capacitors & inductors,” said Umamaheswaran R, Scientific Secretary, ISRO.
“IESA is assisting ISRO in establishing Technologies Incubation Centres across the country and the first such Centre is starting at NIT Agarta/a in Tripura state. The objective of Technology incubation centres is to develop cutting edge technologies needed by the space sector and creation of IPs. This is going to be a great push towards Make in India,” said Anil Kumar Muniswamy, Chairman, IESA (India Electronics and Semiconductor Association).
The ISRO Technology Incubation Centre, Agartala was launched remotely by Biplab Kumar Deb, Chief Minister, Tripura with Dr. K Sivan, Chairman, ISRO; Dr. A S Kiran Kumar, Former Chairman, ISRO; Dr. P V Venkitakrishnan, Director, CBPO, ISRO; Dr. H K Sharma, Director, NIT, Agartala; Anil Kumar Muniswamy, Chairman IESA and MD, SLN Technologies and other dignitaries at the Inaugural session of SPACETRONICS 2018.
“Given the availability of abundant talent in India, I am very excited about the tremendous opportunity we have, to accelerate the space related innovation and start-ups through this ISRO Space Technology Incubation Centre at National Institute of Technology (NIT), Agartala. ISRO is looking to incubate start-ups that would build applications; offer services and products which it can use internally and help them scale up so that these firms can exploit opportunities globally. We will work with multiple models for the incubators such as starting an incubator on own or engaging existing technology incubators to groom these start-ups under ISRO supervision. This facility with active support from the State Government of Tripura and IESA, the Ecosystem Partner will be a big boost for the process in every sense,” said Dr. Sivan.
“Tripura has been focusing to emerge as a prominent place in the Indian technology map nurturing innovation, entrepreneurship and invention. We have put in place policies and framework to ensure that the ecosystem is favourable to more partnerships, access to funds, ease of business, networking in the domestic and international market and more importantly, inculcating this new initiative — ISRO Space Technology Incubation Centre of the National Institute of Technology (NIT), Agartala. This is a kind of process to develop start-ups by ISRO and the government initiative of Transforming India. Along with the support of ISRO & IESA, we want to inculcate an ecosystem to propel the space and ESDM sector and encourage innovation not only in the state but in the rest of the country too,” said Biplab Kumar Deb, Chief Minister, Tripura
