Forty years back, Austin in Texas, U.S., was a growing provincial economy, where universities produced well-trained graduates and most of them left the State for jobs. Today’s Tirupati, endowed with a high academic profile, has a striking similarity with Austin of those days, witnessing a similar brain drain.
IC2 Institute of the University of Texas, founded by George Kozmetsky, a pioneer in entrepreneurship and innovation, stemmed the talent migration in 1977. His Austin Technology Incubator (ATI) founded in 1989 was the first and is the longest-running university technology incubator today.
The same company has now joined hands with the Federation of Indian Chambers of Commerce and Industry (FICCI) and the State government to establish a technology business accelerator named ‘xlr8’ in Tirupati. The venture was started to create a world-class technology start-up ecosystem to foster the culture of entrepreneurship.
The four-month training for the first batch of cohorts in xlr8 has been successfully completed and they are ready for commercialisation. “With this training and transfer of IC2 methodology, the entrepreneurs will be on their own to translate their ideas into real, tangible, measurable action,” says Glenn E. Robinson, Assistant Director (Global commercialisation group) of IC2 Institute and the Managing Director of xlr8 (Andhra Pradesh).
“Austin started this way 40 years ago and the same idea will be replicated in Tirupati,” says Gregory Pogue, Interim Executive Director of IC2, dwelling on how a sleepy town can become the nerve centre of innovation. IC2 program manager Jim Vance, who has trained hundreds of innovators, is also offering his expertise to the best of brains in Tirupati.
Sameer Panda, the inventor of a tyre with burst-preventive puncture-curative technology and a participant, confesses that the program had helped him in commercialisation and disclosed his plan to set up a manufacturing unit in Renigunta.
Similarly, Krishna Ravi, who developed the LED tube-light with Plug-In Driver (PID) technology, credits the programme for having helped him in analysing competition and validate the technology from the stakeholders’ perspective.
Andhra Pradesh Innovation Society Chief Executive Officer Nikhil Agarwal is leaving no stone unturned to set in motion the process of realising the State’s vision of having an entrepreneur in every family. A congenial and supporting ecosystem is in place, adds Society Manager M. Geethasree.
The second batch has already been identified and the training for the cohorts will begin on February 15.
