The Gopalakrishnan-Deshpande Centre at the Indian Institute of Technology Madras has been awarded the “exemplary practice in technology commercialisation”.
The centre was started by the Deshpande Foundation and the University of Massachusetts Lowell in 2012. The award was presented at the 11 th annual Deshpande Symposium held in Cleveland, Ohio.
According to the awards committee, the centre “best exemplified the spirit of the award with the breadth of programmes that cover the life cycle of a startup from idea to scale up as well as its national aspirations.”
The centre’s professor-in-charge Krishnan Balasubramanian said: “GDC has been successful in designing and rolling out programmes that stimulate innovation and entrepreneurship in IIT Madras and other STEM institutions. In India, less than 2% of academics commercialise their research, mainly due to lack of guidance and role models in this difficult space.”
About 200 professors from 40 STEM institutions have signed up for GDC’s programmes and more than 800 entrepreneurs have been transformed.
The centre, a non-profit initiative, was established in the Institute in 2017 with contributions from alumnus Gururaj Deshpande, Jaishree Deshpande and Kris Gopalakrishnan.
GDC’s chief executive officer Raghuttama Rao said the country with severe socio-economic challenges needs hi-technology solutions at affordable prices. With the internationally developed innovations being unsuitable, the centre stepped in to bridge the gap by building the capabilities of Indian researchers and entrepreneurs through its programmes.
