New Delhi: Federation of Indian Chambers of Commerce and Industry (FICCI) is in association with Don Bosco College of Engineering Goa will set up a Defence Incubation & StartUp Centre at Goa. This initiative is an opportunity for DRDO Licensees of DRDO ATAC program to conduct Joint R&D, development of products & processes, hence increase knowledge, wealth and employment along with acceleration of technologies.
The DRDO – FICCI ATAC programme aims to create a commercial platform to deliver technologies developed by DRDO to appropriate commercial markets both nationally and internationally for use in civilian products and services. FICCI along with the IC2 Institute of Texas University has identified a few technologies which were initially only exposed to the defence sector. Within a brief span since the signing of a Memorandum of Understanding (MoU) between the DRDO and FICCI, several leading players of the Indian industry have submitted their Expression of Interests (EoIs) to FICCI for technology transfer for a number of technologies selected.
Mr J.M. Noronha, Chairman – GOA State Innovation Council also stated that this incubation centre will act as platform for mentoring support & will be a dedicated R&D Lab for accelerating technologies. The objective is to promote innovation and entrepreneurship. This incubation centre will also facilitate links between academia, research institutions and industry along with a focus on Sector and Industry development.
Mr Nirankar Saxena, Senior Director – Centre for Innovation & Technology Commercialization, FICCI highlighted the proposed incubation centre will be a Technology Transfer Facilitation centre. This is first time ever in India, technologies coming out of DRDO FICCI ATAC program (Accelerated technology assessment and commercialization) program and other defence technologies for civilian application will be incubated at a facility to develop such technologies into market-ready models which will have potential to scale to next level. It will create competitiveness in local economy and also generate employment and wealth.
Father Kinley D’Cruz, Director of Don Bosco College of Engineering stated the Don Bosco along with FICCI intends to utilise the collective experience of the incubation team with support from academic, scientific and entrepreneurial expertise to build world class technology commercialization facilities in Defence related sector.
The incubatees will be benefitted from the experts associated along with market access in this incubation centre. The proposed incubation centre will also help development of new products for defence and also scaling of innovative technologies to achieve commercial excellence.
IC2 Institute at University of Texas partner with FICCI of DRDO FICCI ATAC program aims to create a platform for taking Indian Technologies in Global Markets. The IC² Institute is a globally recognized “think and do” component of The University of Texas at Austin whose mission is to engage in cutting-edge research to enhance the solving of unstructured problems related to market economies, wealth creation, growth, and prosperity through entrepreneurial activity and the commercialization of technological innovation.
The objective of setting up this incubation centre is to establish 40-50 Defence startups creating an economic Impact & generating employment. Goa is the first state to establish incubation centre for Defence Startups. On day 1 of signing MOU, 7 DRDO Technologies licensees of DRDO FICCI ATAC program have signed letter of intent in sector like Water, Health care, Industrial Security, Manufacturing.
