GIZ to Facilitate MSME Innovation through new Incubators in Small Cities of India

Aiming to promote innovation amongst MSMEs in India, GIZ, the German Agency for International Cooperation, is supporting the set-up of new incubators in Tier II and Tier III cities by providing capacity building, mentoring and handholding the organizations interested in setting up an incubator.

GIZ, under the framework of the bilateral project on ‘Innovation Promotion in MSMEs’ jointly implemented with the Ministry of Micro, Small and Medium Enterprises (MoMSME), has joined hands with Indian STEPs and Business Incubators Association (ISBA) and its partner organizations Agri-Business Incubator - ICRISAT, Villgro Innovation, PSG-STEP and CIIE-IIM Ahmedabad to implement the project.

Although many incubators have evolved in the last few years with the support of the government, only a few incubators have succeeded to become self-sustainable and to upscale their operations. There is a lot of scope to learn from those successful incubators on how to set-up a self-sustaining incubator.

In a first series of workshops conducted in Delhi, Pune and Bangalore, established incubators shared their experiences with around 70 institutes and organisations desiring to establish an incubator.

After the workshop, Raghunandan Rajamani, Executive Director, ISBA, said, “We have received over 35 proposals from interested and reputed institutes after the workshop. In a next step, we will shortlist around 20 to 25 organisations that will get targeted capacity building and mentoring support, in the next 15 month to start their operations.”

The first capacity building training programme for the selected organisations would be held from May 23-25 in Lonavala, Maharashtra.

During the workshop, the potential incubators will get an in-depth view on how to start their operations.

With the initiative GIZ seeks to assist and guide the organisations till the submission of their proposals for funding programmes of the government. The project also seeks to support the potential incubators in on-boarding their first start-ups and developing targeted programmes for them.

The MSME Ministry jointly with Gesellschaft fuer Internationale Zusammenarbeit (GIZ) is implementing this project on Innovation Promotion in MSMEs that aims to strengthen the innovation system by systematically fostering cooperation between industry, academia and government and by improving the innovation capacity and sustainability of MSMEs (including start-ups and social enterprises).