SAP extends Cooperation with IIT- Bombay institutes Innovation Centre in the Campus
SAP SE and Society for Innovation and Entrepreneurship (SINE), a technology and business incubator at the IIT-Bombay (IITB) campus jointly launches Startup Accelerator Program.
On the heels, SAP also inaugurated an SAP Innovation Centre, housed within IITB campus to reinvigorate its existing initiative with IITB to support startups and train teachers.
The SAP-IITB Startup Accelerator Program is said to be a cohort based, boot camp led accelerator program to mentor and accelerate the business growth of ten social enterprises or startups over the next year.
Whereas, SINE will administer a business incubator that will provide support for technology-based entrepreneurship and help young minds in their first fledging steps to market. The common goal is to nurture investible startups and make them profitable.
“We want to be a significant accelerator of growth for emerging social entrepreneurs and startups in India,” said Bernd Leukert, member of the Executive Board, Products & Innovation, SAP SE. “SAP is committed to propelling the entrepreneurship ecosystem in India by providing youth and emerging entrepreneurs with access to technologies they need to succeed in the digital economy.”
The SAP Innovation Centre will host research projects in association with the computer science department of IITB; in addition, it will provide an opportunity for students to participate in SAP Mile, a university crowdsourcing platform which allows students to participate in virtual internships to learn and experiment on SAP product ideas and solutions.
“IIT Bombay is committed to academic and scientific excellence. We are delighted that SAP is partnering with us through the Innovation Centre and Startup Accelerator program. These programs will also help our students to gain valuable real-life experience in partnership with SAP”, said Professor Devang Khakhar, Director of IIT Bombay.
According to Dilipkumar Khandelwal, Managing Director, SAP Labs India and Executive Vice President, Enterprise Cloud Services, SAP SE said, “The partnership with the Indian Institute of Technology, Bombay, will further our existing efforts on strengthening the entrepreneurship ecosystem. So far, SAP impacted over 250 startups; accelerated and mentored 20 startups and social enterprises to make them investible and enable their next stage of growth.”
