Indian Institute of Technology (IIT), Kanpur has partnered with the union housing and urban affairs ministry to support sustainability-focused startups through the Startup Gateway for Garbage Free Cities 2.0 program.
The project will be piloted by the Startup Incubation and Innovation Centre (SIIC) of the IIT Kanpur.
As the implementation agency for the program, SIIC has invited startups from across India to apply for the next cohort of innovators.
The selected startups will receive benefits such as funding support of Rs 20 lakh, a one-year incubation program, business acceleration and additional funding, technical and business mentoring from subject-specific experts, access to state-of-the-art infrastructure and advanced R&D facilities, and facilitated investor connections.
The participating startups will establish direct links with corporations and urban local bodies (ULBs), enabling them to deploy innovative solutions in the field.
Prof S Ganesh, Officiating Director, IIT Kanpur said, “With increasing population and urbanization, waste management has emerged as one of the increasingly difficult challenges of our times.”
Prof Ankush Sharma, Professor-In-Charge, SIIC, said IIT Kanpur always promotes and nurtures next-generation technological response to global challenges.
The initiative is aimed at expediting the Swachh Bharat Mission by offering crucial support to businesses in various thematic areas, including zero dump, reduce, reuse and recycle, plastic waste management, waste segregation, innovative waste cleaning, real-time waste monitoring and social innovation for waste management.
SIIC is one of the oldest incubators in India. It was established in 2000 when the entrepreneurial ecosystem was still at a nascent stage in India.
The multifaceted and vibrant incubation ecosystem at IIT Kanpur, nurtured for over two decades, prospers to fill the gaps on the road to converting an idea into a successful and meaningful business model. The domain expertise combined with the infrastructural prowess of the academic institute has collectively demonstrated a knack for tremendous social impact and technological advancement over the years.
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IIT Kanpur was established on November 2, 1959 by an Act of Parliament. The Institute has a sprawling campus spread over 1,055 acres with a large pool of academic and research resources spanning across 19 departments, 22 centres, and 3 Interdisciplinary programs in engineering, science, design, humanities, and management disciplines with more than 550 full-time faculty members and approximately 9,000 students.