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.