With the entrepreneurship bug biting a growing number of students during placements across campuses, the Centre for Innovation Incubation and Entrepreneurship at the Indian Institute of Management, Ahmedabad, is planning to create a seed fund of $2 million (Rs 10 crore) exclusively for funding clean technologies.
The seed fund will be created under a new programme called the Cleantech Venture Programme. Entries will be invited from universities and research institutes, and evaluated by a panel of experts from the government, scientists, researchers, academicians and industry experts.
Selected technologies from the entries would be showcased and made available for discussion in the first Cleantech Conference to be held in 2008.
The conference will invite policy makers, project developers, entrepreneurs, venture capitalists, investors and research labs.
For funding and partnership, the CIIE is looking at contacting corporations interested in clean technologies. It will also contact venture capitalists, banks and finance organisations, and government bodies like the Ministry of New and Renewable Energy, Ministry of Environment and Forests and the state electricity development authorities.
"The CIIE has been supporting technologies like conversion of waste plastic into fuel, filter for arsenic-affected drinking water and herbal dyeing of textiles. Having identified potential technologies from the search, we will offer incubation support at IIM-Ahmedabad like product designing, technology fine-tuning, market assessment, facilitating dissemination of technology, raising venture finance and technology transfer etc," said Kunal Upadhyay, CEO, CIIE.
The programme would cover energy technologies like solar PV, fuel cells, wind and bio-fuels as well as energy storage technologies like batteries, thin firms and flywheels.
Energy efficiency technologies like conservation systems, intelligent metering etc would be included. Entries on water recycling, purification, desalination, conservation-related technologies and waste management are some of the areas that the CIIE is looking at.
Apart from the clean technology programme, the CIIE's flagship nation-wide search for innovations called Anveshan will be conducted twice a year due to increased response from innovators.
It has also launched the Anveshan Ideaz Programme, which is targeted towards people who can ideate on subjects like biomedicine, pollution management and energy savings among others.
Water management, aerospace application, tissue culture, health care, applications for physically and mentally challenged and transport management are other sectors for which people can contribute their ideas.