Great Lakes Institute of Management, Chennai and Ministry of Defence organize iDex at AGBI for start-ups

Chennai, December 9, 2019: Great Lakes Institute of Management, Chennai, a premier B-school in the country in association with NITI Aayog and the Ministry of Defence organised an outreach program titled iDEX at AGBI (Atal - Great Lakes - Balachandran – Incubation) Centre, in its premises. Through this initiative, iDEX - a platform, has been introduced to the students that is intended to help create functional prototypes of products/technologies relevant for national security (prototyping), and spur fast-moving innovation in the India defence sector. It also targets to help new tech products/technologies find a market and early customer (commercialization) in the form of the Indian Defence Establishment. The event commenced with an address by Mr Saurabh Kumar Chaubey, CEO, AGBI, who spoke about how it was the focus of the AGBI to conduct such events that bring out innovation management. He then spoke about how with technology now playing a big role in every possible dimension, it is important for everyone to have a flair for innovation and hence this initiative by the government is truly remarkable. Key note speaker, Mr. Dayanand, Program Executive Officer, Ministry of Defence, Government of India, addressed the gathering and said, “iDex initiative provides grants and funding to carry out research and development for Defence purposes. We the Ministry of Defence aim to create an ecosystem of technological development with academia, start-ups, MSMEs and individual innovators. Our objective is to facilitate development of new, indigenised, innovative technology for the Defence and aerospace sector and to create a culture of engagement with innovators, whoever can serve our purpose. This outreach programme is to inform you that you too can participate, provide solutions, and take the opportunity to serve the country. We want to empower a culture of co-creation and co-innovation within the Defence and aerospace sectors." He also briefed the gathering about the other initiatives such as the SPARK (Support for prototype and Research Kick-Start) grant that the DISC (Defence India Start-up Challenges) offers to selected start-ups aimed to catalyse open innovation.