‘IDEX: Innovation for Defence Excellence’ Seminar at IIMA Ahmedabad

In an effort to scale up and give a boost

to the defence start ups ,a seminar on IDEX: Innovation for Defence Excellence’

followed by a panel discussion was held at Centre for Innovation, Incubation

and Entrepreneurship (CIIE) at IIMA one of India’s leading centres catalysing

the entrepreneurship ecosystem in the country through its various interventions

and initiative.

The seminar was attended by the chairman,

IDEX, Dr VK Rai, Start up mentor, Ravin Vyas, Wing Commander Puneet Chadha, PRO

& Spokesperson, Ministry of Defence, Swaroop Pandya, Tapish of IIMA and

other senior dignitaries from the armed forces. A series of lecture were

delivered by various speakers on ‘IDEX’ to the students of the Armed Forces

Programme (AFP) 2019 including other students of IIMA.

The Armed Forces Programme is a six month

fully residential Business Management Course conducted by IIM Ahmedabad,

specifically for selected officers of various branches of Army, Navy and Air

Force who are transitioning into a second career after completion of their

tenure in the services. These officers come with vast leadership experience and

a variety of skills which are keenly sought after by the corporate sector.

In his talk, Dr VK Rai emphasized on the

vital need for promoting indigenous capability in the defence sector. Outlining

the scope of the Innovation for Defence Excellence (IDEX) project initiated

under the aegis of Atal Innovation Mission (AIM), he highlighted the

establishment of Defence Innovation Fund (DIF) aimed at creation of an

ecosystem to foster innovation and technology development in Defence by

engaging the industry, MSMEs, start-ups, individual innovators, R&D

institutions and the academia. He spoke about provision of providing necessary

assistance in terms of grants / funding and technical support to enable

development of technologies with potential for adoption by Indian defence

sector.

He spelt out the core objectives of the

Defence Innovation Fund as facilitation of rapid development of new, indigenous,

and innovative technologies and creation of a culture of engagement with

innovative start-ups, to encourage co-innovation and co-creation for defence

sector. IDEX has invited interested participants of AFP19 to join them and to

contribute to the success of this noble initiative taken up by the government.