Osmania tech incubator to unlock creative potential

Facility likely to be thrown open to students, research scholars, faculty and alumni of the varsity by month-end

Hyderabad: Students, research scholars and faculty of Osmania University (OU) will soon have a state-of-the-art facility to nurture their innovative ideas and turn them into products or services.

The Osmania Technology Business Incubator (Osmania-TBI) will have high-end co-working spaces in 12,000 sq ft at the Central Facilities for Research and Development building on the OU campus.

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The facility will house around 250 open and closed work stations with plug and play features. It will also be equipped with audio and video visual rooms, separate cabins for CEOs and an open cafeteria.

Not just co-working spaces, the university is also planning to extend its high-end research facilities available in the CFRD building and other campus colleges to the incubatees. This facility is likely to be thrown open to students, research scholars, faculty and alumni of the varsity by the end of this month.

The OU has established the Osmania-TBI under the Rashtriya Uchchatar Shikasha Abhiyan (RUSA) 2.0 programme to create an innovation and incubation eco-system on the campus.

The Osmania-TBI will be working on thrust areas like med-tech, clean-tech, Digi-tech, bio-tech, fin-tech, auto-tech, education tech and agriculture technology.

Students, research scholars, faculty and alumni of the university will be offered mentoring, networking, funding, clearances and approvals, capacity building and legal and IPR services through the incubator.

About 21 applications have been received for the incubation programme. A majority of these were from students, partly from research scholars, faculty and alumni of the university. The ideas pitched in by candidates were in areas like digi-tech, genomics, retail, artificial intelligence, machine learning and agriculture technology.

“Out of 21 applications, about a dozen are expected to be shortlisted for the incubation programme that will commence from the end of this month or the first week of April. To inculcate entrepreneurship skills in students, we are increasing the number of campus ambassadors who will be a one-point contact between the Osmania-TBI and colleges,” a senior OU official said.