After incubating about 250 start-ups in the last nine years, the Centre for Innovation and Entrepreneurship (CIE) is looking at moving up the value chain.

Set up by the International Institute of Information Technology (Hyderabad) at its Gachibowli campus, the CIE has launched an initiative to promote deep tech start-ups working in areas like Artificial Intelligence and Machine Learning.

As the biggest academic tech incubator in the country, the centre witnessed some good funding for its start-ups. The aggregate funding received by different start-ups stood at about ₹35 crore.

The experience that it gained here had helped the IIIT(H) in preparing the ground for the T-Hub, the tech incubator promoted by the Telangana government.

The centre has also plans to start domain specific accelerators focussing on medtech, artificial intelligence, machine learning and VLSI (Very Large Scale Integration).

Nasscom former chairman and Executive Chairman of Cyient Ltd, BVR Mohan Reddy, and Telangana IT and Industry Secretary Jayesh Ranjan formally launched the CIE 2.0 facility.

“Deep tech innovation is imperative and will shape up the future,” a IIIT statement, quoting BVR Mohan Reddy, said.

Jayesh Ranjan said the city built a good ecosystem for early stage start-ups. “Now this deep tech-focussed incubator will add to that,” he said.

“Our research centres have been working on emerging technologies. We now have to look at how these technologies can be used in the industry and start-up ecosystem,” PJ Narayanan, Director of IIIT (H), said.

Related Topics
comment COMMENT NOW