What is BI?

The Business Incubator (BI) of the Kanwal Rekhi School of Information Technology was envisaged as an integral part of the school, to foster the idea of entrepreneurship, and its integration with the creation of new ideas. The BI serves a launching pad for enthusiastic entrepreneurs having innovative propositions related to Information technology. There has been a major impetus to the pilot incubator set up in 2000, inspired by the success of IIT Bombay alumni in various organizations in India, Europe and the USA.

Since its inception, eleven companies have been incubated. At present, there are six companies operating out of the BI.

Currently Prof. C. Amarnath from Mechanical Engineering Department is Professor Incharge of Business Incubator.

More information about the BI is available at http://www.sineiitb.org/index.html

How did it start?

When KReSIT became functional with generous funding from Shri Kanwal Rekhi and Shri Nandan Nilekani, the BI was envisaged as an integral part of the School. It formally became operational by admitting two companies in August 1999. The facility then temporarily moved to a space graciously provided by the Department of Physics, with five companies in May 2000. It is now located on the fourth floor of the school building, complete with office ambience and other facilities.

Where is it headed?

We visualize the BI to strengthen tie-ups with VCs and financial institutions, managerial and legal alliances, and streamline patenting and IP support. We also look forward to mentoring by IITB alumni, which will reinforce IIT-alumni interactions. This in turn should provide exposure for students and realistic vetting of ideas. We also plan to expand our facilities to accommodate more companies. Our mission is to promote start up activities in areas such as chemical process simulation, bioinformatics, computational biochemistry, machine design and CAD/CAM, to name a few, which also use high-end IT applications.