HIGHLIGHTS OF THE SECOND CRIKC MEETING HOSTED BY DEAN, ISB, MOHALI, ON JUNE 8, 2017

Chandigarh, June 8, 2017: A special meeting of member institutes of Chandigarh Region Innovation and Knowledge Cluster (CRIKC) was held today at Indian School of Business, Mohali. Professor Rajender Srivastava, Dean, ISB (Mohali and Hyderabad) hosted the meeting, especially to focus on leveraging the immense technical knowledgebase at educational and research institutes in the region, and diverse potential of corporate sector around the Tricity. Through CRIKC, these were waiting to be transformed into an entrepreneurial ecosystem. Professor Arun Grover, Chairman CRIKC and Vice Chancellor, Panjab University chaired the meeting. The meeting was attended by directors of IMTECH, NIPER, CIAB, and representatives from different CRIKC institutions. Prof. Grover recalled the important goals set in the previous meeting at ISB on May 10, 2017. The members deliberated on the capabilities available in the region, and recommended the following.
i) ISB will initiate an expository course on “Lab to market” for faculty and students at the CRIKC institutes, and devise strategies to engage them more closely with corporate sector at different stages in research, designing and product
development.
ii) Local industry will be specially invited to learn about their expectations, identify the matching areas of interest and give experiential learning to the faculty and students for addressing industrial problems and for entrepreneurship development.
iii) Four sectors were prioritized for partnerships with industry in translational education and research. These are IT, engineering products, life science, health, food & agriculture.
iv) Models known from the Silicon Valley and University of Texas at Austin could be adopted to attempt to transform the ecosystem in Chandigarh region. Showcasing and business idea competitions are good tools to successfully engage students,
faculty, corporate sector and venture capitalists to develop Start Up and Scale Up projects.
v) Web sites of Centre for Policy Research at PU and CRIKC shall be augmented to give single point information on the calendar of events in progress and plans through the coming month, available expertise, technologies, knowhow and facilities
available at the CRIKC member institutes.
Prof. Srivastava emphasized that in the present phase of rapidly changing technologies, even three years was a rather long period in corporate sector planning. Hence, the Chandigarh region must accelerate leveraging the synergy at its disposal through the CRIKC institutes. Professor Grover expressed his satisfaction at the new dimensions that were getting unfolded with closer participation of ISB along with other member institutes of CRIKC. A number of Task Forces will be set up
and corporate sector brought into fold to functionalize various decisions taken at the meeting. The next meeting will be hosted by Director, IMTECH, Dr. Anil Koul, in July 2017.