Hyderabad: The Confederation of Indian Industry (CII) launched its Centre for Excellence for Innovation, Entrepreneurship and Startups (CIES) which provides plug and play workspaces, ideation labs, mentoring and innovation labs at T-Hub here on Thursday.
The 200-seater world class facility was set up with in partnership with the Telangana government and Pratiksha Trust. CIES will work with the ecosystem stakeholders to enhance the success of startups, with focus on innovation and entrepreneurship skill sets.
The centre will also work with startups to create, incubate and accelerate within the corporate offices and family office engagements in the long-run. The launch of the Centre also saw exchange of MOUs for Corporate Accelerator Programmes with Apollo Hospitals, Elico Ltd, Skoda Auto and Vedanta.
CII launched the CIES initiative in 2020 as a corporate-driven resource platform that enables the growth of successful start-ups in India.
Principal Secretary (IT) Jayesh Ranjan, who inaugurated the CIES, said: “Eight years ago, the Telangana government very consciously decided to make Hyderabad a Startup hub and have taken many concrete steps towards this journey. As envisaged, the CIES will become a corner stone for the Startup movement.”
CK Ranganathan, chairman, CII Startupreneur Awards 2022 said the CIES model would not be about just helping the startups, but would also be a win-win partnership, enabling mutual learning for corporates while startups receive right mentorship.
CII Southern Region and Co-Founder & MD, Bharat Biotech, Suchitra Ella, Apollo Hospitals Executive Vice Chairperson Shobana Kamineni, CIES Chairman Kris Gopalakrishnan and others also spoke.