Airbus has become the latest company to pick the brains of the brightest minds in the Indian start-up space. The world’s second largest aircraft maker wants their help in transforming innovative ideas into valuable businesses quickly.

Airbus President and CEO Fabrice Brégier said that there are several fledgling aerospace companies that have innovative ideas but struggle to make them commercially viable. At the same time, Airbus’ in-house talent, accustomed to working in a big enterprise, can learn from entrepreneurs who are adept at bringing new ideas into the marketplace rapidly.

With this aim in mind, Airbus plans to set up ‘BizLabs’ in Bengaluru and Hamburg in Germany within the next 12 months, to work efficiently with start-ups and allow smaller organisations to benefit from working with big groups. Airbus will not necessarily fund these start-ups and is still to work out who will own the patents. But it expects this effort to be mutually beneficial. The first of the BizLabs was set up in the Airbus headquarters in Toulouse, France, last month.

Airbus and US-based Boeing, which are battling for a major share in the commercial airline space, believe newer technologies that are commercially viable can help them race ahead.

“New ideas and innovation are key to keeping Airbus at the forefront of the aviation sector. The challenge is to speed up the process of transforming the most promising ideas to life and this is the primary goal of Bizlab,” said Brégier.

The Airbus Bizlab will provide early-stage projects with wide-ranging support through a six-month “acceleration programme”. Through these programmes, BizLab gives access to a large number of coaches, experts and mentors in various domains, including technology, finance and marketing.

The writer had visited Airbus’ Toulouse facility at the company’s invitation

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