Mumbai: The Department of Science and Technology (DST), Government of India, in collaboration with Indian Institute of Technology Bombay’s Society for Innovation and Entrepreneurship (SINE), has taken initiatives for converting ideas and innovations (knowledge-based and technology-driven) into successful startups under NIDHI-PRAYAS Program. National Initiative for Developing and Harnessing Innovations (NIDHI) is an umbrella program conceived and developed by the DST for facilitating ideas and innovations (knowledge-based and technology-driven) and supporting successful start-ups.
As per the initiative, the DST has launched NIDHI- Promoting and Accelerating Young and Aspiring innovators & startups (NIDHI-PRAYAS) program. The program caters to idea-stage entrepreneurs with a physical product offering, who require support for prototyping while it would also facilitate the innovators with the Physical infrastructure, Technical Guidance, Business Mentorship etc. The DST has assigned Society for Innovation and Entrepreneurship (SINE) IIT Bombay at the national level to act as a Program Management Unit (PMU) of the PRAYAS program.
NIDHI-PRAYAS program aims to support 500 such innovators through PRAYAS centres in established Technology Business Incubators (TBIs) every year for next few years. 10 centres, each supporting 10 innovators each year, will be set up over the next 5 years. The PRAYAS centres should ensure that innovators who apply to seek fund support should be incubated/to be incubated with STEP/TBI.
The PMU is the program management unit, which is in charge of carrying out all tasks related to the set up and execution of the NIDHI-PRAYAS program. SINE, who is the PMU of the program, is a Technology Business Incubator (TBI) set up with support from DST, Govt. of India, hosted by IIT Bombay. SINE is a broad spectrum technology incubator, incubating startups from varied technology and science areas. SINE has, over the past 12 years, incubated 82 companies, of which 28 are in the system and 39 have graduated successfully.
The key objective of NIDHI is nurturing start-ups through scouting, supporting and scaling of innovations. The key stakeholders of NIDHI includes various departments and ministries of the central government, state governments, academic and R & D institutions, mentors, financial institutions, angel investors, venture capitalists and private sectors.
As a first step under this initiatives, the DST invites applications from STEPs/TBIs for setting up Prayas Centers(PC). For the first year, only STEPs/TBIs promoted by DST (NSTEDB) can apply for PRAYAS Centres. Now, the first call for applications is now open. The last date of application is 25th September 2016.
For more details on NIDHI-PRAYAS program, one can visit the official portal of the program:
